Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

VOLUNTARY FUND.

Mr. TAYLOR: 1.
asked the Minister of Pensions what amount is now available in the Voluntary Fund; whether ex-service men whose claims have been rejected by tribunals on the ground of their disability not being attributable to or aggravated by military service are eligible for grants from this fund; and if he can state the total amount disbursed from the Voluntary Fund during the six months ending 30th Tune last?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The balance of the King's Fund not already earmarked for specific distribution is approximately £17,000. Cases of the kind referred to in the second part of the question are, under the rules of the King's Fund, not eligible for grants. The total amount distributed from the Voluntary Fund during the period referred to is £12,300.

Mr. TAYLOR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the decision was reached that such cases were not eligible?

Major TRYON: If the hon. Member refers to the question of grants for poultry farming—I cannot give the exact date without notice—he will find that the recommendations from different parts of the country are very much against grants for poultry farming, compared with the advantages of other grants.

Mr. VIANT (for Mr. T. HENDERSON): asked the Minister of Pensions what are the purposes for which grants
are now made from the Voluntary Fund at his disposal; whether applications from ex-service men desirous of starting poultry breeding are now considered; and if he will consider applications from men in receipt of disability pensions for grants to enable them to apprentice their children and/or provide outfits or tools?

Major TRYON: It would not be practicable to set out in detail the various types of case that are assisted from this fund, but I may say that in all cases disablement or death by war service is a condition precedent. Grants for poultry farming are no longer made as experience has shown that the venture is ordinarily not successful, and as regards children, assistan.ee is confined to cases of orphan children.

EX-PRIVATE GEORGE BROWN.

Mr. TAYLOR: 2.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will cause further inquiries to be made into the case of ex-Private George Brown, who in 1923 and 1926 was a patient in the Lincoln City Sanatorium suffering from tuberculosis whether he is aware that this man was wounded and gassed on the battlefield and lay in an open field for two days and two nights, and that his health was undermined by privations and underfeeding whilst a prisoner of war in Germany; and whether, in view of medical evidence that tuberculosis was present before 1923, he will reconsider the refusal of the Ministry to grant a pension in this case?

Major TRYON: The position in this case was fully explained to the hon. Member in the letter forwarded to him on the 22nd October. The facts are that Mr. Brown's medical attendant certified that he was first consulted in January, 1923, for an attack of influenza, and it was not until November, 1923, that tuberculosis was found to be present. At the hearing of his appeal, Mr. Brown confirmed the date of first attendance and put forward the contention that his condition had arisen as the result of having been a prisoner of war. Every aspect of the case was fully presented to the tribunal and, as that body, with all the evidence before them, confirmed the rejection of the claim, I regret that it is not possible for any further action to be taken in the case.

Mr. TAYLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that medical evidence was submitted which was not before the tribunal, and that representations were made to him with a view to his reopening this case? Would it not be possible for him to deal, under the dispensing Warrant of 1884, with a case of this kind which is one of very great hardship and is causing a great deal of public comment?

Major TRYON: I am going to take into account the points which the hon. Member was kind enough to lay before me the other day, but I am not at all certain yet that it will be possible for

Areas.
Salary of Chief Area Officer or Deputy Chief Area Officer at date of change.
Scale of Salary of Established Civil servant at date of change.


Scale.
Bonus.






£
£
£
s.


Edinburgh
…
…
…
650
550
165
9


Liverpool
…
…
…
450
£400 rising by annual1
168
11 to



…
…
…

increments to £500.
196
5


Birmingham
…
…
…
500
£400 rising by annual
168
11 to







increments to £500.
196
5


Lewisham
…
…
…
500
£400 rising by annual
168
11 to







increments to £500.
196
5


Norwich
…
…
…
480
£400 rising by annual
147
9 to







increments to £500.
171
14

SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST YOUNG PERSONS.

Captain ARTHUR EVANS: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is proposed to take action on the Report of the Departmental Committee on Offences against Young Persons, and, if so, what form will the action take?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): As regards administrative action, I have already commended the Report to the consideration of Magistrates and the police. Whether any, and if so what, legislation should he proposed is a matter which will be better considered when the other Committee now sitting has made its report.

me to deal with it in the way that he suggests.

AREA OFFICERS.

Mr. DENNISON: 3.
asked the Minister of Pensions the names of the areas in which chief or deputy chief area officers have been replaced by established civil servants; what was the maximum salary paid to the late officers; and what are the total emoluments, including bonus, if any, payable to those now appointed?

Major TRYON: As the answer contains a number of figures, I am, with the hon. Member's permission, circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL TRADE DISPUTE.

PROHIBITED MEETINGS.

Mr. LEE: 8.
asked the Home Secretary whether it was on his instructions that it was decided to ban the holding of a miners' meeting in the Miners' Welfare Hall, Clown, Derbyshire, on Sunday morning last; and whether such ban was against a meeting being held at all, or was it against the meeting being addressed by a Mr. Mullins?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by me to the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. D. Kirkwood) on 11th instant, when I said that the meeting was prohibited by the Chief Constable of Derbyshire under authority given by me, in pursuance of No. 22 of the Emergency Regulations. It was prohibited in view of the fact that it
was a public meeting, and was to be addressed by Mr. Mullins, whose speech was considered by the police as likely to cause disaffection. Ordinary lodge meetings have not been prohibited.

Mr. LEE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Chief Constable is delegating his powers to the Superintendent of Police?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No; that is quite impossible. No one but a Chief Constable has powers delegated from myself, and a Chief Constable has no power to delegate at all.

Mr. TAYLOR: Is it now regarded as a crime to make a speech which causes dissatisfaction?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I did not say so.

Mr. TAYLOR: Yes, you did, in your first reply.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Then I take it from the hon. Member that I did, but the word should have been "disaffection," and that is in the document from which I read.

Mr. TAYLOR: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that his own speeches cause disaffection?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Honestly, I do not think they do.

Mr. BECKETT: If the right hon. Gentleman would address open meetings, instead of private meetings, he would find that that is so.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I had a very good open meeting last night.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: 11.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has sent, or instructed to be sent, to the chief constables in England and Wales, a list of speakers who are not to be allowed to address public meetings in mining areas?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have thought it right to draw the attention of chief constables to the published list of speakers taking part in the campaign organised by the Communist party; but the decision whether any particular meeting should be prohibited rests, as I have explained before, with the Chief Constable within whose district the meeting is to take place.

Mr. MACLEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman supply the House with the list which is sent round to chief constables, so that we may know?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have received information that this matter is to be discussed this evening. If the hon. Member is fortunate enough to take part in the Debate, and will put that question, I would endeavour to satisfy him.

Mr. BECKETT: Are there any people on the list who are employed by the Economic Union, who used to be employed by Mr. Bottomley, and whose speeches are causing great provocation in the mining areas?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Member must give me notice of that question.

EMERGENCY REGULATIONS (PROSECUTIONS).

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 9.
asked the Home Secretary whether he will furnish a Return showing the total number of persons prosecuted, together with the number of convictions, under the Emergency Powers Act and Regulations since the beginning of the present state of emergency, the Return showing also the number prosecuted and convicted for each of the main types of offence?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The latest available return giving the desired details covers the period to 16th October last, and I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the figures up to that date. I am obtaining further figures for the last four weeks; and will give them to the House next week.

Mr. BATEY: When the right hon. Gentleman issues the Report, will he try to state how many convictions have taken place when coalowners were on the Bench?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have not got that information, and it would cause a tremendous lot of work to get it. I am afraid that I might have to demand to know who was on the Bench when cases were dismissed.

Colonel DAY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it fair for coal-owners or any one in the coal industry to try people in such cases?

Mr. BUCHANAN: Will the Home Secretary try to get a return showing the nature of the employment of persons convicted, and showing whether there are any coalowners or servants of the coalowners among the convicted persons?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I must ask the House to wait and see the figures which I can give. If they want any further figures that I can reasonably get I will get them. But a statement of that kind, applying to over 2,000 cases since

EMERGENCY REGULATIONS, 1926.


Proceedings thereunder to 16th October, 1926.


Regulation.
Number of Persons Prosecuted.
Results of Prosecution.


Convicted.
Dealt with under Probatin of Offenders Act.
Dismissed or Withdrawn.
Pending.


19
44
32
3
9
—


20
817
543
103
171
—


21
1,235
785
162
204
84


22
8
6
—
1
1


23
2
2
—
—
—


25
1
1
—
—
—


28
85
71
2
12
—


34
38
15
17
6
—


Coal (Emergency) Ddirections.
454
271
91
72
17


Total
2,684
1,726
381
475
102

DISTURBANCE, ABEROWMBOI.

Mr. G. HALL: 18.
asked the Home Secretary if his attention has been drawn to the police baton charge at Abercwmboi, Aberdare, on Tuesday, 9th November, at which charge a boy, 13 years of age, suffering from epilepsy, a disabled soldier in receipt of 100 per cent. disablement pension, and other men, women, and children, were struck and knocked down indiscriminately; if he is aware that serious complaints are being made by the inhabitants against the behaviour and language of the imported police; and will he order an inquiry to be made into the circumstances of the baton charge and the conduct of some of the police now stationed in that area?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have obtained from the Chief Constable a report on the events of the evening of the
May last would involve a very heavy task, and would not be very useful.

Mr. BECKETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when miners' representatives have been on the Bench they have been asked to withdraw, and have done so? Can the right hon. Gentleman not issue some general instructions?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the original question.

The figures promised are as follows:

9th instant at Abercwmboi. It appears that the police had proceeded to the house of a man willing to work at the Aberaman Colliery, in order to escort him to work, and they were followed by a crowd which grew to 500. persons. The crowd commenced to stone the police, and as it was feared that they would rush the colliery premises, steps were taken to stop their advance. However, the crowd stoned the police more heavily, and attempted to rush the cordon. It was dark and heavy rain falling, and in the circumstances I am satisfied that there was no alternative to dispersing the crowd by a charge, and I see no reason for any further inquiry into that aspect of the matter.

Mr. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman meet me, in order that I may convey to him some very serious charges against the police. I do not desire to trouble the House with them now.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Of course, I need hardly say I am always open to receive the hon. Member or any other hon. Member of this House.

HEDLEY HILL, COUNCIL SCHOOL (MEALS).

Major KINDERSLEY: 21.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the headmaster of the Hedley Hill council school on various dates between 5th and 9th November refused to give food to four children, aged 14, 11, 7, and 4½, at the school canteen, their father, a coal hewer at the Hedley Hill colliery, having returned to work at the colliery on 1st November, although his first pay was not due until 13th November; that on the afternoon of 10th November, having discovered that the children had received meals that day, the headmaster thrashed the two elder children in school for having disobeyed his orders in attending the canteen; whether these facts have been communicated to the local education authority; what action they have taken in the matter; and what action does he propose to take?

Lord E. PERCY: I have no knowledge of this incident, but if my hon. and gallant Friend will supply me with the information in his possession, I will make inquiries.

Mr. LAWSON: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, if it is within the Rules of Order for an lion. Gentleman to make a very serious assertion against a particular person, and to use this House as a means of doing so, when the particular person concerned has no opportunity of defending himself?

Mr. SPEAKER: Each hon. Member takes responsibility for what he puts on the Paper.

Mr. LAWSON: May I point out, Sir, that the President of the Board of Education says he has no knowledge of the very serious charges that are made in this question. These charges are made, and there may be nothing in them, but the hon. Gentleman who makes them can go off scot-free, while the teacher himself, or the headmaster, will probably have to bear the brunt of these charges.

Mr. SPEAKER: We must wait until the matter has been cleared up.

Mr. BATEY: May I ask the President of the Board of Education if he will make inquiries into this allegation, as some of us know the schoolmaster, and we are satisfied that the statement is an absolute lie?

Lord E. PERCY: I have said I will make inquiries.

Mr. COMPTON: Can we put down another question?

Mr. R. MORRISON: If the result of the Noble Lord's inquiries bear out the contention of my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), will he see that the same publicity is given to those facts as has been given to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Major Kindersley)?

Lord E. PERCY: I cannot answer a hypothetical question. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend who put this question will put down a further question, and, if he does not, any hon. Member opposite can do so.

COKE (PRICES)

Sir CHARLES OMAN: 57.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that in small places local gas companies, enjoying a monopoly of the supply of coke to the public, have been demanding prices well over 80s. a ton for that commodity from which they have already extracted their gas; and if he can take steps to prevent excessive prices being charged?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Colonel Lane Fox): I am aware that £4 per ton and more is being charged for coke in many places. But I would point out that for some months past gas companies have been dependent almost entirely upon foreign coal, which gives a relatively low yield of coke, and for which very high prices have been paid.

Sir C. OMAN: May I request you, Mr. Speaker, to obtain such quiet in the House that it is possible for the replies of Ministers to be heard? It was perfectly impossible to hear one word of that reply.

Mr. SPEAKER: Members seemed to be still thinking of the previous question.

DAM CONSTRUCTION (LLUGWY).

Major OWEN: 12.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the representations made to him as to the conditions under which the methods by which the dam at Llugwy was constructed and the serious doubts which exist as to the depth of the concrete core of the embankment, he is now in a position to state what steps he proposes to take to allay the public anxiety which exists among the people in the valleys that would he affected by a break in the dam?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: This dam is one of those examined by Messrs. Alexander Gibb and Partners, the firm of engineers who carried out the investigation after the Dolgarrog disaster, and the matter to which the hon. and gallant Member refers is dealt with fully in their report. As I stated in reply to a question last Thursday, the companies concerned are carrying out immediately the various works necessary to satisfy the requirements of the firm of engineers.

Major OWEN: Has the right bon. Gentleman obtained any information as to whether work has actually been begun or not?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have received a certain amount of information, some, indeed, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has been good enough to give me himself. The difficulty is that I have no legal power in the matter. It might be necessary for me to ask the House for legislation to enable me to take a more active part in regard to the complaints about these dams. I have tried to proceed in a conciliatory way with the owners of the dam, and, of course, Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners are a firm of very high standing in engineering quarters.

Mr. MACLEAN: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman bring this particular class of work under the Emergency Powers Regulations?

Mr. HAYES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware whether any compensation has been paid at any time to any of the sufferers arising from the disaster at Dolgarrog, and are any steps being taken to see that compensation is paid to the sufferers?

Mr. SPEAKER: That ought to be another question.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners did not recommend that the foundations should be carried down to the rock, and that other firms of engineers more experienced in this class of work think it is necessary, as in the case of other reservoirs, to carry the foundations down to solid rock? Will he consult other expert opinion on the matter?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: My difficulty is that I have no powers in the matter. Up to the present Parliament has not given the Home Secretary powers over the question of dams. I have no power to spend public money to employ any firm of engineers. I arranged with the company that they were to pay the fee of this particular firm of engineers. If any hon. Member can satisfy me that there is anything really wrong with these dams, I will consider whether it is desirable to ask the House for powers.

Major OWEN: Has not the right hon. Gentleman power, under the common law, to indict a firm of engineers or a company which has put up something that is a danger and a nuisance to the general community?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I do not think that I have any more power than any other of His Majesty's subjects. It might be open to the hon. Member to indict them. I have no more power than the local authority or the hon. and gallant Member has to indict a company who put up a nuisance.

Oral Answers to Questions — TOBACCO AND REFRESHMENTS (HOURS OF SALE).

Mr. SMITHERS: 13.
asked the Home secretary whether he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to repeal the prohibition of the sale of tobacco goods in hotels, restaurants, public-houses, theatres, and music halls and other places where the public resort after 8 p.m., so that persons desirous of being supplied with such goods at convenient times may be able to have them?

Sir PHILIP RICHARDSON: 16.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is now prepared to take steps to discontinue war-time restrictions upon the sale of tobacco, liquid refreshments, and other necessities of modern life, and place Britain in a position of equality with other countres where no such restrictions exist with a view to encouraging an increased number of foreign tourists to visit this country?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I would refer to the reply I gave on the 12th instant to questions by the hon. and gallant Member for North Croydon (Lieut.-Colonel Mason), and by the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. Tasker).

Oral Answers to Questions — CARDIFF PRISON (FLOUR TENDERS).

Mr. BARNES: 14.
asked the Home Secretary whether it is the custom of the Governor of His Majesty's prison at Cardiff to accept the lowest tenders for the supply of goods to that prison; and whether this custom was followed in regard to tenders for flour during the month of October?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: All tenders for flour for Cardiff and other prisons are submitted to the Prison Commission, where they are dealt with on a strictly competitive basis, the lowest tender being accepted if it complies with the conditions of the contract. Two contracts for supplies of flour to Cardiff Prison were dealt with in October, and in each case the lowest tender was accepted.

Captain A. EVANS: On a point of Order. May I ask whether an official of the Co-operative Society is entitled to ask a question in this House as to why a Government Department refuses to accept certain tenders?

Mr. SPEAKER: Certainly. He is like any other Member of this House.

Oral Answers to Questions — PERFORMING ANIMALS' INSPECTOR, EXETER.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 15.
asked the Home Secretary on what grounds he communicated with the Exeter Local Authority in order to induce them to discontinue the appointment they
had made, under Clause 3 of the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act, 1925, of the local Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' inspector, who is also a special constable, as the officer of the local authority duly authorised as their inspector?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The question does not, I think, state the facts quite correctly. According to my information the local inspector of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was appointed a special constable for the express purpose of enabling him to enforce the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act. This is not a purpose for which under the Special Constables Order, 1923 (Statutory Rubs and Orders, No. 95), a special constable may be appointed, and I may add that it was also contrary to the intention of this House when pssing the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions — HORSE-DRAWN VEHICLES (LOADS).

Colonel DAY: 17.
asked the Home Secretary if he will consider legislation with a view to limiting the loads carried by horse-drawn vehicles?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It is already an offence under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, to overload a horse and there is no evidence before me that the law needs strengthening.

Oral Answers to Questions — STAG HUNT, MINEHEAD.

Mr. PRESTON: 19.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the stag hunt at Minehead, in which a pursued deer taking to the sea was followed by motor boats, brought back to the quay, and there killed; and whether he will consider the desirability of making such practices illegal?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have seen the newspaper reports of the incident referred to. I am afraid I do not see what action could be taken to stop what happened in this case, short of making stag hunting illegal.

Colonel DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a short time ago a stag driven out to sea, swam over to France; and will he consider the introduction of legislation to stop this kind of thing?

Mr. N. MACLEAN: Cannot a police constable take action against anyone who is doing this, as a matter of cruelty to animals?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am not responsible for the action of the local constabulary, and I cannot direct the local constables in every individual case. That must be left to the magistrates.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCHOOL CHILDREN (FOOTWEAR).

Mr. LAWSON: 20
asked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the fact that many school children are unable to take advantage of the educational facilities provided on account of lack of footwear, any steps can be taken to empower local education authorities to provide footwear in necessitous cases?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Lord Eustace Percy): I do not think that the provision of boots and shoes is a matter for the local education authorities to deal with.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

SLUM CLEARANCES.

Mr. T. THOMSON: 23.
asked the Minister of Health how many towns have begun any slum clearances under the Housing Act, 1919, and subsequent Acts?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain): The position in regard to the clearance of slum areas in England and Wales is as follows: 93 schemes relating to 71 local authorities have been confirmed since 1919. On 1st October last tenders had been approved or loans sanctioned in respect of 09 schemes for the erection of new houses in order to provide accommodation for the displaced population and to enable clearances of the areas to be commenced. In the case of (38 schemes the areas had been wholly or partially acquired, and clearance was in progress in the case of 50 schemes.

Mr. THOMSON: In view of the slow progress of slum clearance, does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take any action to stimulate local authorities to further efforts?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not admit that progress is slow, compared with the progress which has taken place in the last 20 years.

TOWN PLANNING SCHEMES.

Mr. THOMSON: 24.
also asked how many towns have begun to formulate town planning schemes; and how many towns with a population of 10,000 or more have done nothing in the matter?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: 285 urban authorities have prepared or are preparing town planning schemes, a number of which extend to portions of other urban areas. The number of urban authorities with a population of 10,000 or over in whose areas formal steps have not, so far as I am aware, been taken in the preparation of town planning schemes is 281.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGE, CHESTER.

Colonel DAY: 25.
asked the. Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the charge of attempted murder against Reginald Farndale, aged 11 years, at Chester; and, in view of the fact that this lad was certified as a mental defective three years ago, will he state what action has been taken with a view to providing accommodation for such cases?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My attention has been drawn to this case and I am informed that accommodation has been found for the lad in an institution in Gloucestershire. Unfortunately, there is at present a shortage of accommodation for mental defectives throughout the country; and local authorities are being urged to make further provision. The local authorities in the County of Cheshire are now considering a proposal to provide a joint institution to serve the whole county.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a deplorable state of affairs that a mental defective should have to attempt the crime of murder before he can be put into one of these homes?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is not a correct statement of the case.

Colonel DAY: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Chief Constable said that the doctors in Chester had been trying for three years to get this lad into a home, but on account of lack of accommodation they could not do so and that he committed this crime before he could be put into a home?

Oral Answers to Questions — DOVER MORTUARY.

Colonel DAY: 26.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the conditions existing at the Dover mortuary, where post-mortem examinations are held in a building that is not weather-proof, and where no light warmth, or accommodation of any kind is provided; and will he take such action with the local authorities as will result in the existing state of affairs being remedied?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. I have, however, received a report from the local authority which appears to show that the building in question is reasonably adequate for the purposes for which it is used.

Colonel DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the coroner has stated that he has received complaints from every doctor in Dover that the mortuary is insufficient?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot add anything to what I have said.

Oral Answers to Questions — BETHNAL GREEN GUARDIANS (ARMY AND NAVY).

Lieut. - Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: 27.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the decision of the Bethnal Green Board of Guardians not to allow any boys under their control to join any of His Majesty's forces, and what steps he proposes to take to prevent authorities entrusted with the expenditure of public money adopting such a policy?

Mr. BECKETT: On a point of Order. In view of your ruling of last week, Sir, with regard to questions which can be asked in this House concerning authorities subject to local election and control, and in view of the fact that an hon.
Member on this side was unable to proceed with a question regarding the Chester-le-Street Board of Guardians, may I ask whether this question is in Order?

Mr. SPEAKER: This question is repeated from last week, and was already on the Paper then. I should like to near from the Minister whether he has any power in this matter. I am not clear in my own mind as to whether this is purely a matter for the local authority, or whether the Minister bears any of the responsibility.

Mr. BECKETT: With every respect to you, Sir, may I remind you that on another occasion, when we were discussing the right of Members of this House to ask questions about the power of inspectors of local constabulary, it was ruled—and I am not questioning the ruling—that although the Home Office make a substantial grant, and should have some say as to the doings of these people, questions regarding them were not in order.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is quite right in saying that I deprecate questions in this House on matters which are in the province of local authorities. In this case I must hear what the Minister has to say. I cannot be expected to be acquainted with the position.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am aware of this decision and, in view of the good prospects open to boys who join the Services, I much regret it. Boys who have been formally adopted by the guardians are subject to their control until they reach the age of 18, and I have no power to intervene in such cases. But the guardians have no right or power to interfere with the desires of such boys after that age, or with boys who have not been adopted after they have ceased to be chargeable.

Sir F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring to the notice of the Bethnal Green Guardians the reply which he has been good enough to give here?

Sir JOSEPH NALL: On a point of Order. Do you allow questions to be put where it is indicated that the action of a body of this kind indicates disloyalty to the Crown?

Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot take upon our shoulders all the shortcomings, if such there be, of local authorities which are acting within their proper powers.

Sir F. HALL: But surely this is a most flagrant case!

Mr. THURTLE: Is it to be understood that when a local authority refuses to provide cheap flesh and blood for the defence of property—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. SPEAKER: I deprecate bringing the arguments that might be used in the council chamber on such a subject on to the Floor of this House.

Mr. BECKETT: On a point of Order. Seeing that we had to wait for your decision till the Minister had spoken, I should like to ask if a question which appeared to you to be doubtful when first asked is improved because the Minister takes the opportunity to state to the House and Io you that he has no power in the matter, and then proceeds to deliver a homily to the guardians, in doing which he does admit responsibility?

Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members all seem to be anxious to perform other people's duties as well as their own.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS ACT.

Mr. BECKETT: 28.
asked the Minister of Health how many applications for pension for widows and orphans under the recent Act have had to be refused; and what percentage the refusals are of the total number of applicants?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: In order to give an accurate representation of the position it is desirable to show separately the figures relating to applications based on the insurance of persons who died before the commencement of the Act and those relating to applications based on the insurance of men who died after the commencement of the Act. In the first category there have been 46,687 rejections, representing 24 per cent. of the claims made, and in the second category 4,206 rejections, representing 9 per cent. of the claims made.

Mr. TAYLOR: 29.
asked the Minister of Health if the dependants of deceased men are treated as eligible for benefit under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act in cases where they would have fulfilled the statutory qualifying condition but for the failure of the employer to pay contributions in respect of the deceased; and whether, if such dependants cannot now qualify for benefit, he proposes to enable such persons to qualify in any amending legislation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: A pension cannot be awarded under the Contributory Pensions Act unless the statutory conditions are fulfilled, but I would point out that paragraph (e) of Sub-section (1) of Section 30 of the Act allows regulations to be made for enabling, in prescribed cases, contributions which have been paid but not paid on the due dates to be treated as having been so paid for the purpose of a widow's or an orphan's pension. The reference to the regulations which have been made for this purpose is Statutory Rules and Orders, No. 1362 of 1925.

Mr. TAYLOR: Do I take it that in a case where the contributions have not been paid by an employer, the applicant will have an opportunity of paying those contributions, and so qualifying for benefit?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, that is so.

Mr. VIANT (for Mr. T. HENDERSON): 35.
asked the Minister of Health whether, under Section 33 of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, any reciprocal arrangements have been entered into with His Majesty's Dominions outside Great Britain for health insurance and pensions; and whether a widow and children in receipt of pension and allowances under the Act would forfeit such pension and allowances on migration to Canada?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No reciprocal arrangements under Section 33 of the Contributory Pensions Act have yet been entered into with other parts of His Majesty's Dominions, and in their absence the position is as stated in the latter part of the question. The question is, however, being considered with other related questions by the Imperial Conference.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILK AND DAIRIES ORDER, 1926.

Mr. HASLAM: 30.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has taken steps to ascertain, in regard to the Milk and Dairies Order, dated 6th July, 1926, what Regulations, if any, of a similar nature obtain in countries from which we derive our imports of butter; and whether he will give the information to the House?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The laws in the countries from which our largest imports of butter are derived contain provisions which are comparable with those of the Milk and Dairies Order, in addition to others relating especially to butter. These laws are necessarily too long to set out in full in the course of question and answer, but copies or summaries of them are available in my Department, and I shall be pleased to afford facilities to any hon. Member who desires to consult them.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman do his best to ensure that the supply of milk in rural villages is not stopped, because it is well known that there is a great deal of misapprehension and anxiety about this Order?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think the question relates to butter, and not to milk.

Captain WALTER SHAW: 33.
asked the Minister of Health whether the expenses caused by the carrying out of the Milk and Dairies Order, 1926, fall on the owner or the tenant?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The obligation of complying with the requirements of the Order rests on the person who is producing or selling milk, as the ease may be. The question as to who is to bear the cost of structural alterations required to premises depends on the terms of the contract of tenancy and if not covered by the contract must be a matter for arrangement between the landlord aid tenant.

Mr. RHYS: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication as to what sort of period will be allowed before enforcing these Regulations strictly?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member will find that in the Regulations.

Mr. HASLAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman not give special consideration to those small cow-keepers who are
tenants and who may have difficulties in this matter, so that these small men shall not be dealt with harshly under the Order?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think my hon. Friend may rest assured that there will not be any harshness in administering the Order, and, as a matter of fact, a very considerable period is allowed for careful consideratoin of all cases.

Sir EDMUND TURTON: 48.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that, in many villages and sparsely populated country districts where there are no recognised milk-sellers, small farmers, who only keep cows for rearing calves and supplying their own households, are in the habit of selling their surplus milk to oblige their neighbours; and whether he will give instructions that such farmers cannot be regarded as carrying on the trade of dairymen so as to be subject to registration under the Milk and Dairies Order?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have been asked to reply. I am advised that the question whether a farmer is carrying on the trade of dairyman is one of fact to be decided on the circumstances of the individual case, and, speaking generally, I should suppose that the farmers mentioned in the question would be regarded as not carrying on the trade, and, therefore, as not subject to registration under the Milk and Dairies Order. They would, however, be subject to the general requirements of the Order.

Sir E. TURTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman's answer apply equally to butter as to milk?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I think so.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHISWICK (PROPOSED SUPER-POWER STATION).

Sir NEWTON MOORE: 31.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is in receipt of a communication from the Surrey County Council asking him to postpone giving his decision on a recent inquiry into the application from the Chiswick District Council respecting the utilisation of the riverside lands as a site for a super-power station until he has received representations from the Surrey County Council on the matter; and
whether, in view of the objections of the residents of Barnes, Mortlake, Kew, Richmond and district to the proposal to erect a super-power station on Duke's Meadows, Chiswick, affecting as it does the county of Surrey generally from the point of view of public health, finance and amenities, and in view of the effect of such a station upon Kew Gardens, consideration will be given to the possibility of substituting some other site in another part of the country?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, but I am afraid that I cannot postpone my decision. Full opportunity for making representations and objections was given at the recent public inquiry, which lasted several days, and the representations then made, including the suggestion in my hon. Friend's question, are receiving my consideration.

Sir N. MOORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the lands referred to were originally reserved for town-planning purposes?

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST HAM GUARDIANS (DEDUCTIONS FROM WAGES).

Mr. W. THORNE: 32.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that Sir Alfred Woodgate, Chief Commissioner of the West Ham Union, has issued printed forms to the relieving officers in the southern part of the borough which require the workman to authorise his employers to deduct from his wages any sum advanced to him by the board of guardians on loan, and to accept the receipts of the treasurer of the guardians as part of his wages; whether he is aware that the action of the Chief Commissioner is a direct violation of the Truck Acts of 1887 and 1896, and the memorandum of 31st March, 1898; and whether he will take any action in the matter?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Sections 58 and 59 of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834, provide for the grant of relief in certain eases on loan and for its recovery under an order of the Court by deduction from wages. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the printed form to which he refers, and which I understand is issued by the guardians with a view to avoid-
ing, with the consent of the man concerned, resort to legal proceedings. It is, of course, entirely within the option of a person receiving the form whether he will sign it or not. As at present advised, I do not see any need for my intervention.

Mr. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the forms in question have been sent to the employers with a view to their persuading workmen to sign the agreement?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, I do not think they have been sent for that purpose. I think they have been sent probably with a view to facilitating this procedure, which, I think, is a very great convenience to the man himself.

Miss LAWRENCE: Is the Minister aware that the Truck Acts formally prohibit an employer making any deduction from wages except with regard to certain matters specified in the Acts, and will he refer the matter to the Law Officers of the Crown, with a view to informing this House as to whether the provisions of the Truck Acts are being observed?

Mr. LAWSON: Do we understand that guardians appointed by the Minister have a right to do things which no employer of labour has?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, the hon. Member must not think that at all. They have the same rights as other guardians, and they are not different from other guardians in that respect. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence), I have examined that question, and I am informed that her interpretation is not correct.

Oral Answers to Questions — WHITE BREAD.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: 34.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is prepared to make an official pronouncement on the purity of white bread and thus allay the doubts concerning an article of food which is eaten by over 95 per cent. of the population; and whether he will instruct the Departmental Committee which is examining the question of flour treatment to extend its inquiries with a view to making an authoritative statement on the dietetic value of the people's staple foodstuff?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This subjects referred to in a Report entitled "Diet in Relation to Normal Nutrition," which was issued by my Department a few years ago. I will consider whether it desirable to extend the terms of reference of the Departmental Committee but I am informed that they could not take up the subject referred to in the question until they have disposed of their present reference.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Departmental Committee are likely to make their Report?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid I am not in a position to say that.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Having regard to the urgency to the public health of this matter being decided in an authoritative way as soon as possible, will the right hon. Gentleman not ask the Committee to pronounce an interim decision on this matter, which is really a very simple one, so that a Circular may be Sent round by his Department?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid the matter is not quite as simple as it appears to be to my hon. Friend. It has been under discussion for a number of years, to my knowledge, but certainly I will consider the matter and see if anything can be done.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: Does the right hon. Gentleman think the periodic denunciations of this staple article of diet are on a scientific foundation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not pretend to give opinions on such subjects.

Oral Answers to Questions — RELIEVING OFFICERS.

Captain D'ARCY HALL: 38.
asked the Minister of Health whether the attention of his Department has been called to infringements of 13 and 14 Victoria, Cap. 101, Section 6, prohibiting the appointment of relieving officers to parochial and township office; and, if so, what action he has taken in such cases?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have not received information of any such infringements as are mentioned in this question, but if my hon. Friend has any cases in mind and will forward me particulars I will make inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHOREDITCH BOROUGH COUNCIL (WAGES).

Sir F. HALL: 39.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in connection with the Report by the Ministry's Auditor that the Shoreditch Metropolitan Borough Council have, as regards the payment of wages in 1925–6, exceeded by about £17,000 the amounts which would have been paid if the council had continued to follow the proper awards, the Government is prepared to take any action to protect the interests of the ratepayers; and, if so, can he say what lines such action will follow?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have received a copy of the District Auditor's report. It appears that the Auditor has made no disallowance or surcharge in the matter on this occasion, but has confined himself to warning the Council of their position for the future. In these circumstances, no question of action on my part arises in this case.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA.

Mr. BRIANT: 40.
asked the Minister of Health in how many cases of encephalitis lethargica reported to his Department during the last 12 months the attack has been preceded during the previous three months by vaccination or re-vaccination?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This information is not available, but the Committee on Vaccination which I appointed last February has issued a request to all medical practitioners in this country to report to the Committee any case of acute disease of the, central nervous system in which vaccination has preceded the onset of the symptoms within a period of four weeks.

Mr. BRIANT: In view of the public anxiety as to the possible connection between inoculation and this disease, cannot such information be given?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not see that it is possible to take any action until I have more details and precise information than I have at present. No doubt they will be forthcoming when this Committee has collected the evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOP FIELDS (INSPECTION).

Mr. BRIANT: 41.
asked the Minister of Health if inspectors from his Depart-
ment visited the hopfields during the last season; if any Reports have been received from them; and, if so, if such Reports can be made available for Members of this House?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. A Report is in preparation, and I will consider on its receipt how far its publication might serve a useful purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIVE RACES (STATUS AND TREATMENT).

Mr. W. BAKER: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Imperial Conference has had under consideration the status and treatment of the native races of the Empire?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for COLONIAL AFFAIRS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The answer is in the negative.

I.


IMPORTS AND RE-EXPORTS OF RAW FRUIT (INCLUDING NUTS USED AS FRUIT) 1925.


Description.
Total imports from all sources.
Of which re-exported.
Imports consigned from Foreign Countries.
Of which re-exported,


Quantities.


Fruit and Nuts used as Fruit, raw:
Cwts.
Cwts.
Cwts.
Cwts.


Apples, raw
5,989,674
352,223
3,362,741
210,789


Apricots, raw
56,180
266
55,283
173


Bananas, raw (converted at two bunches to the cwt.).
6,014,814
104,305
4,813,167
136,282


Cherries, raw
138,513
339
138,513
335


Currants, raw
95,835
2
95,716
2


Gooseberries, raw
53,706
55
53,075
1


Grapes, raw
978,910
38,400
918,410
36,781


Grape-fruit, raw
167,617
6,371
135,891
4,175


Lemons, raw
1,298,249
46,565
1,296,378
46,522


Limps and other Citrous Fruits
594
13
458
13


Nuts used as Fruit:






Almonds
230,978
18,991
216,404
18,972


Barcelona and Hazel
83,706
3,246
83,696
3,236


Brazil
160,385
22,012
160,385
22,011


Walnuts
167,696
13,882
167,545
13,871


Unenumerated
579,536
81,469
413,505
62,586


Oranges, raw
7,728,601
215,658
6,231,780
155,401


Peaches, raw
16,373
1,653
5,113
541


Pears, raw
589,026
20,109
425,253
13,278


Plums, raw
507,414
3,935
497,626
2,711


Strawberries, raw
54,867
24
54,860
21


Unenumerated, raw
440,220
11,984
405,165
9,428


Total Quantity
25,352,894
1,001,502
19,530,964
737,129


Total Value
£32,852,723
£1,714,397
£24,359,460
£1,215,446

Oral Answers to Questions — FRUIT (IMPORTS AND RE-EXPORTS).

Colonel WOODCOCK: 51 and 52
asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will give the latest. returns of imported fruit from foreign countries, and the value of same; and what proportion was re-exported;
(2) the amount of apples imported to this country, and the different sources which have exported them?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): As the replies consist of tables of figures, my hon. and gallant Friend will perhaps agree to my circulating them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the figures:

II.


QUANTITY AND VALUE OF RAW APPLES IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND DURING THE YEAR 1925.


Country whence Consigned
Quantity Imported.
Declared Value thereof.



Cwts.
£


Germany
2,069
2,597


Netherlands
15,446
22,712


Belgium
44,933
57,331


France
406,933
187,671


Portugal
58,342
50,205


United States of America
2,801,301
3,639,883


Other Foreign Countries
33,717
32,504


Total from Foreign Countries
3,362,741
3,992,903


Channel Islands
422
599


Australia
887,759
1,656,994


New Zealand
95,037
223,383


Canada
1,639,794
1,661,946


Other British Countries
3,921
6,136


Total from British Countries
2,626,933
3,549,058


Total
5,989,674
7,541,901

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY (GOVERNMENT SHARES).

Mr. W. BAKER: 42.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, seeing that the market price of the ordinary shares of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company is £6 5s. to-day, as compared with £2 10s. in November, 1923, it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to sell the national holding of 5,000,000 shares?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): No, Sir.

Mr. BAKER: May I ask whether the right hen. Gentleman has not to thank the late Government for retaining this valuable property in the hands of the nation?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think questions about the action of the late Conservative Government had better be addressed to those who were members of it.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Can the Chancellor of the Exchequer say whether it is the ease that had the Government agreed to sell out these shares at the price offered in 1923 to the late Conservative Government, the nation would have lost almost £20,000,000?

Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the time for arithmetic lessons.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA (DEATH DUTIES).

Mr. THURTLE: 44.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will obtain from His Majesty's representative in Russia a Report on the rates of the Russian death duties?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. I cannot see what useful purpose would be served by such a Report.

Mr. THURTLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that, in view of the present financial situation, a study of these death duties might be a source of fruitful inspiration to him?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It is not for me to neglect to consider any source of inspiration.

Commander BELLAIRS: Is it not an unfriendly act to call attention to the existence of capitalists in Russia?

Mr. RADFORD: May I ask whether the capitalists in Russia have any capital on which to levy death duties?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not informed on that subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. CAMPBELL: 47.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of appointments to higher clerical grade which have been made in his Department since 1st January, 1923; the number of clerical officers who have been appointed to higher clerical posts since 1st January, 1923; and the number of male clerical officers in his Department who are classified A, or above average, for promotion purposes?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): The numbers are 14, 2 and 12 respectively. The first figure includes three women higher grade clerical officers who secured their posts by open competitive examination.

OVERSEAS TRADE DEPARTMENT (ECONOMIES).

Mr. MACKENZIE LIVING-STONE: 58 and 65.
asked (1) the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what economies he has effected in the administration of his Department since he took office;
(2) the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what economies he has effected in the administration of his Department during the year?

Mr. FENBY: 71.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what economies he has effected in the administration of his Department during this year?

Date.
Principal Clerks and above, and officers of equivalent rank holding temporary appointments.
Employés of other Grades.
Approximate number of beneficiaries.


30th June, 1922
…
…
…
379*
22,865
2,705,000


30th June, 1926
…
…
…
224†
10,689
1,754,000


* Includes 57 established officers


Includes 119 established officers (since reduced to 115).


The increase in established officers is mainly due to the establishment of a number of officers who formerly held temporary rank.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

WAGES.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: 50.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the minimum rates of wages and the overtime rates for weekdays and Sundays fixed by the various agricultural wages committees in Great Britain for men and women agricultural workers?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill): I have been asked to reply, and with the hon. Member's permission, I will answer all three of them together. The sums authorised by Parliamentary Votes for these Departments this year are within the knowledge of the House. It is not possible at this stage of the year to say what the ultimate expenditure out of these sums will be. An opportunity for reviewing Departmental expenditure is provided when the Estimates for the year are under discussion. Hon. Members must bear in mind that economies are secured, not only by the elimination or curtailment of existing services, but also by the avoidance of new commitments and by adjustment of policy with a view to limitation of expenditure.

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS (STAFF).

Mr. VIANT (for Mr. T. HENDERSON): 4.
asked the Minister of Pensions what was the number of permanent officials of the rank of principal clerk and above employed by the Ministry on 30th June, 1922, and on 30th June, 1926; and what was the number of employ6s of all other grades and the number of beneficiaries of the Ministry on the same dates?

Major TRYON: As the answer contains number of figures, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Mr. GUINNESS: The Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act, 1924, under which agricultural wages committees fix minimum rates of wages for agricultural workers, applies only to England and Wales. There are no similar minimum rates in Scotland. Particulars of the rates at present in force for adult male workers in each area in England and Wales were given in a reply to a ques-
tion put to me by the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Foot Mitchell) on the 9th instant, and I am circulating in

MINIMUM BATES OF WAGES fixed by Agricultural Wages Committees for Adult Female Workers in Agriculture.


Agricultural Wages Committee Area.
Minimum Rates in operation on 17th November, 1926.


Minimum Rate (per hour).
Overtime Rates (per hour).


Weekdays.
Sundays.



d.
d.
d.


Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire
6
—
—


Berkshire
5
—
—


Buckinghamshire
6
—
—

Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely
5½
7
7


Cheshire
6
—
—


Cornwall and Scilly Isles
5
—
—


Cumberland and Westmorland
5½
—
—


Derbyshire
5
—
8


Devonshire
5
—
—


Dorsetshire
5
6
6


Durham
2s. 6d. per day of 8 hours.
4
4


Essex
6
—
—


Gloucestershire
5
—
—


Hampshire and Isle of Wight
5
—
—


Herefordshire
4½
—
—


Hertfordshire
24s. per week of 48 hours.
Time and a quarter.
Time and a quarter.


Kent
5½
6½
7


Lancashire
6
—
—

Leicestershire and Rutland
5
—
8


Lincolnshire—





Holland
6
—
—


Kesteven and Lindsey
5½
—
—


Middlesex
24s. per week of 48 hours.
7½
7½


Monmouthshire
6
—
—


Norfolk
5
6½
7½


Northamptonshire and Soke of Peterborough.
6
—
—


Northumberland
5
6
6


Nottinghamshire
5
—
8


Oxfordshire
6
—
—


Shropshire
5
—
6


Somersetshire
6
—
—


Staffordshire
5
6
6


Suffolk
5
—
—


Surrey
5½7
8


Sussex
5
6½
7½


Warwickshire
5
6
7½


Wiltshire
5
—
—


Worcestershire
4½
5¾
5¾


Yorkshire—





East Riding
5
7½
7½


North Riding
6
9
9


West Riding
5
7½
7½


Anglesey and Carnarvon
6
—
—


Carmarthenshire
5
6
6


Denbighshire and Flintshire
5
6¼
6¼


Glamorganshire
6
7
7½


Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire
5
—
—


Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire
5
6
7½*


Radnorshire and Brecon
5
6¼
7½


* 6½d. per hour for the first three hours of employment.

the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement giving correspondence particulars for women.

Following is the statement:

PIG CLUBS.

Mr. EVERARD: 49.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has arrived at any decision regarding the formation of pig clubs to assist those agricultural workers who take advantage of the cottage-holding provisions of the Small Holdings and Allotments Bill?

Mr. GUINNESS: The proposals submitted to my predecessor for the promotion of pig clubs were fully considered by him and have also received my consideration. I regret that I do not see any prospect of the Government being able to provide a grant from public funds for this purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — TATI DISTRICT CONCESSION.

Captain CAZALET: 53.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the question of the Tati Concession has been under the consideration of the Imperial Conference; and, if so, what steps is it proposed to take to carry cut the wishes of the inhabitants of that district?

Mr. ORSMBY-GORE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As to the general position regarding the question which has been raised, concerning the possible transfer of the Tati District to Southern

BRISTOL—AYONMOUTH ROAD.


Section
Estimated Cost.
Grant promised.
Actual Cost.Payments made under the Grant.





£
£
£
£


No. 1
…
…
223,200
50,000
216,779
78,562


No. 2
…
…
182,427
50,000
175,105
47,993


No. 3
…
…
205,017
50,000
Not yet ascertained.
45,000 (on account).

As the actual costs on Sections 1 and 2 have fallen below the Estimates, the grant has been reduced pro rata in each case.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE UNIONS (ACCOUNTS).

Sir F. HALL: 56.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider taking steps to ensure that the annual accounts of the trade unions shall show all expenditure on salaries and expenses of

Rhodesia, it is not possible at present to add anything to the reply given to the hon. Member for Woolwich East (Mr. Snell) on the 15th June of last year.

Captain CAZALET: May I ask whether it is not time that a. conclusion on this matter was arrived at?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The shifting of territory from one Government to another is not a matter which can be decided off-hand in any way, and the Government of the Union of South Africa has to be heard on the matter, and various considerations have to be examined before this can possibly be decided.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRISTOL-AVON-MOUTH ROAD.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 55.
asked the Minister of Transport the total sum paid or promised by the Government towards the cost of making Portway (the Bristol-Avonmouth road); and what amount has already been paid to the Bristol Corporation on account of this road?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

officials in detail, and that evidence shall be required to be furnished to the Government Department concerned that every contributing member is furnished each year with a copy of the accounts?

Mr. SEXTON: Before the hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask, on a point of Order, whether, in view of the fact that the information asked for is now at the disposal, not only of the members of the unions in the annual
reports, but also to the members of the public on payment of a small fee; and, in view of your recent statement that these questions are unnecessary, and that you would inquire into the matter, might I ask at what decision you have arrived?

Mr. SPEAKER: Some time ago there was a series of questions of this kind, but in the result the Government gave a Return which, I think, supplied the figures generally. This question asks apparently for something further than that "Return, and the hon. Gentleman is quite entitled to ask for the information.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): The present form of account, of which I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy, subdivides both salaries and expenses under head office, district offices and branch offices, and under Section 16 of the Act of 1871 every member is already entitled to obtain a copy of the accounts free of charge on demand. I think that substantially this meets the points which the hon. and gallant Member has in mind.

Sir F. HALL: May I risk whether it is a regulation with regard to these trade unions that every member shall be supplied with a copy free of charge in order that he may know the financial position?

Mr. CLYNES: May I ask whether, as further steps are to be taken to give in detail more information about the trade union funds, steps can be taken to give corresponding information with regard to the funds of employers' associations, and whether, as information in detail has to be given publicly about the political funds of trade unions, similar information will be afforded as to the political funds of the Conservative organisation?

Mr. BETTERTON: With regard to the question asked by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that quite clearly does not arise out of this question. With regard to the question by my hon. and gallant Friend, these are, under Section 16 of the Act of 1871, given on demand to any member of the union who asks for them.

Mr. SEXTON: Is it not a fact that, as the hon. Gentleman states, not only are they given free and without cost, but that the difficulty now is to get the members to take them I Could not the
same thing be applied to such institutions as the Stoke Water Company?

Sir F. HALL: As, apparently, there is no desire by hon. Members connected with these trade unions not to allow their members to have copies, will the trade union leaders undertake to see that, copies are supplied?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

UNIDENTIFIED MEN

Mr. SHEPHERD: 59.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in the case of men reported as being unable to account for themselves, he has received inquiries from relatives or friends who hope they may be British soldiers or sailors who had been regarded as missing or presumed killed; and whether he will cause to be circulated in the Press detailed descriptions with photographs of any men so reported?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): Cases are reported from time to time of men who are unable to account for themselves and who are believed to have served in the British Army, and these reports lead to many inquiries from the relatives of missing men. So far as I am aware there is only one such case which has not yet been cleared up. A description in this case, with photographs, has already been published in the Press, but although many inquiries have as a result been received, they have not led to the man's identification.

RIBBON SILK.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 60.
asked the Secretary of State for War what stock is kept by the War Office of ribbon silk, Medai No. 447, 1793 to 1814; and how much has been used during the past five years?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The answer to the first part of the question is 25 yards; to the second part, none.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

MIDNAPOHE FLOODS.

Mr. LANSBURY: 61.
asked the Undersecretary of State for India whether he can give any information as to the recent
Midnapore floods, the area affected, the number of lives lost and how many cattle lost, and what area of paddy crops have been destroyed; and what steps the Government are taking in the matter?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): The latest reports show that the total area affected by flood is about 500 square miles; four persons were killed by the collapse of a house. My Noble Friend has no information regarding the number of cattle lost or the acreage of paddy crops destroyed.
Several medical and public health officers and non-official relief parties have been active in the affected areas, and a sum of Rs.50,000 was placed by Government at the disposal of the Collector for house-building, a further sum of equal amount being provided for loans for agricultural purposes.

JUBBULPORE FLOODS.

Mr. LANSBURY: 62.
asked the Under Secretary of State for India the extent of the losses sustained in the recent Jubbulpore floods; the number of lives lost and the extent of the losses sustained; and what steps the Government are taking in the matter?

Earl WINTERTON: According to the latest reports received from the Provincial Government, the number of lives lost in the districts affected by these floods has probably been something under fifty. The damage to property has been great and widespread, railway communications being seriously affected and bridges having been swept away. Steps have been taken to provide the necessary relief in all the districts affected. Loans have been liberally granted and free gifts of timber for rebuilding houses have been made.

AIRSHIP BASE, KARACHI.

Mr. SCURR: 63.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India what progress has been made with the work on the airship base at Karachi; and when it is expected that the work on this airship base will be finished?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): I have been asked to roply. In answer to the
first part of the question, considerable progress has been made with the work The site has been cleared, the foundations of the shed have been laid and part of the steel work erected, and many of the ancillary works services have been completed. As regards the second part of the question, all the work now in hand should be completed in the latter part of 1927.

LABOUR REPRESENTATION.

Mr. SCURR: 64.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any nominations have yet been made to the four additional council seats recently created by the Government of India for the special representation of Labour?

Earl WINTERTON: The answer is in the negative, for nominated seats are not filled until the elections to fill the elective seats are completed, which is not yet the Case.

Mr. LANSBURY: Will the Government of India, in making the selection, consult what there is of the trade union organisation in India?

Earl WINTERTON: I can give no such undertaking, but no doubt the Government of India will have regard to all the relevant circumstances of the case.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARBITRATION TREATIES (SWITZERLAND AND HOLLAND).

Mr. SHEPHERD: 66.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government last year received offers from the Swiss and Dutch Governments to extend the scope of their existing arbitration treaties to cover all classes of disputes without reservation; and, if so, what replies were given?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Godfrey Locker- Lampson): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The question of extending the scope of the arbitration treaties by which this country is now bound has been under consideration at the Imperial Conference, and I am not in a position to make any statement on the subject until the conclusions of the Conference are published.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

WOOLWICH DOCKYARD.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 72.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of ships that have been in the dry docks or the basin at the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich, in the period 1914 to 1919, and also from the 1st January, 1920, to the end of 1925?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Bridgeman): The dockyard at Woolwich ceased to exist as a Royal naval dockyard in 1869, and has not since been used for docking or repairing ships of His Majesty's Navy. But in 1870 it was handed over to the War Office, who at that time were in great need of a commissariat establishment. Part of it has now been handed back to the Admiralty, who are disposing of it; the remainder is still used by the War Department for storage purposes.

INVALIDITY PENSIONS.

Major BERTRAM FALLE: 73.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether service attributability in case of men invalided rests entirely with the Medical Board or whether the final decision is with the Board of Admiralty?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The final decision on the question whether a disability is attributable to the Service or not is with the Board of Admiralty.

INVALIDING BOARD (CONSTITUTION).

Sir B. FALLE: 74.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the number and ranks of officers who constitute a naval Invaliding Board?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Under the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, the Board of Survey at general surveys consists of the medical officer in charge of the hospital who is to act as president, and three medioal officers, two of whom are to be senior medical officers of hospital and one senior medical officer of the Fleet or depot. When two medical officers of hospital are not available, one suffices. All reports of survey are reviewed by the Medical Director-General of the Navy.

SHIPS (VENTILATION ARRANGEMENTS).

Sir B. FALLE: 75.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the incidence of tuberculosis amongst ratings of the
Royal Navy, he will institute an inquiry into whether the ventilating arrangements in living spaces below armour in His Majesty's ships are satisfactory; and whether the regulations laid down for the artificial ventilation of living spaces are properly observed?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The ventilating arrangements of His Majesty's ships are the subject of the most careful consideration in every case. The general principles to be followed when fitting the ships were settled by a representative committee a few years ago, and those principles are properly observed when settling details. Moreover, any representations from His Majesty's ships as to possible improvements in ventilation are considered and acted upon as far as possible, With regard to the last part of the question the necessity of this is considered so important that it is specially reported on by flag officers at their inspection and a special inquiry is not considered necessary. I may add that I do not agree with the implied suggestion of my hon. Friend that the incidence of tuberculosis in the. Navy is exceptional.

ROYAL FLEET AUXILIARY SERVICE.

Major OWEN (for Mr. HOREBELISHA): 68.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can now state if a decision has been reached regarding the position of officers in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service, and the making of this service a pensionable one?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have nothing to add to my previous replies to the questions raised by the hon. and gallant Member, which stated that a decision would be given as soon as possible.

FLEET FUELLING SERVICE (PAY).

Major OWEN (for Mr. HOREBELISHA): 69.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the mates employed in His Majesty's tugs, Fleet fuelling service, at Devonport are receiving lower rates of pay than the mates employed by the captain of His Majesty's dockyard; and whether, seeing that the former are Admiralty workers employed under similar conditions to the latter, do similar work, and are qualified under the same conditions and examinations, he will consider awarding them equal rates of pay?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The wages of the mates of tugs are in accordance with an award of the Industrial Court on a claim made by the employés' representatives for a special advance in pay only to the mates in question.

DEVONPORT DOCKYARD (DISCHARGES).

Major OWEN (for Mr. HOR EBELISHA): 70.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many men have been discharged from the Devonport Dockyard in September and October, respectively; how many men have been discharged up to the present in the month of November; how many men the Admiralty contemplates discharging up to the end of the present year; and whether the Admiralty has a plan of discharging more men in the next 12 months?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The numbers of workmen discharged from Devonport Dockyard on reduction in September and October, and in November up to Saturday last are as follow: September,31; October.45; November, 37; in addition. 31 men are under notice of discharge. It cannot at present be stated what further discharges it will be necessary to make during the present financial year. As regards the next financial year, it is anticipated that there will be a considerable reduction in the amount of work to be carried out in the dockyard, as a consequence of changes in Admiralty policy, which will necessitate a reduction in the numbers of workmen employed, but it is impossible at this stage to go into details.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.

Mr. RAMSDEN (for Mr. ATKINSON): 36.
asked the Minister of Health (1) whether extended benefit continues to be paid to an unemployed man who refuses work on the land
(2) whether domestic servants employed in hotels open for part of the year are on ceasing to he so unemployed treated as entitled to benefit and extended benefit, although offered and declining private domestic employment?

Mr. BETTERTON: I have been asked to reply. The question would arise whether the statutory condition requiring
the applicant for benefit to be "genuinely seeking work, but unable to obtain suitable employment" was fulfilled. The decision would rest with the statutory authorities and could only be given on a specific claim and in the light of the actual circumstances of the case.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. CLYNES: May I ask the Prime Minister if he will announce the business to be taken to-morrow and the business for next week?

The PRIME MINSTER (Mr. Baldwin): To-morrow I understand that, by arrangement, the Debate on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill is not likely to be a very long one, in which case the following Orders will be taken:
Second Reading of the

Supreme Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland Bill.
Workmen's Compensation (No. 2) Bill.
Committee and remaining stages of the Horticultural Produce (Sales on Commission) Bill [Lords]

Second Reading of the

Naval Reserve (Officers) Bill.
University of London Bill [Lords]

and the Committee stage of the Money Resolution for this Bill.
In regard t the business for next week, on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday we shall take the Report and Third Reading of the Merchandise Marks (Imported Goods) Bill, and if time permit other Orders on the Paper.
The business for the remainder of the week will be announced later.

Mr. CLYNES: With regard to the Bills to be taken to-morrow, is it intended to take them in the order just announced?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, as far as I know. If any alteration be desired, perhaps it will be indicated in the usual way.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation)—No. 2—Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply."—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 2) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Orders of the Day — RELIEF OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD: I regret that two days ago, when the Vote which has given rise to this Bill was under the consideration of the House, I was not able to take part in the Debate, the more so because the Minister of Health, in order to score a point against his opponents, referred to a speech of mine Made in this House two and a-quarter years ago on the question of necessitous areas. It is true that I did say during the term of office of the Labour Government that
There has not been a Minister of Health since the War who was not favourably disposed towards some special treatment of that kind, and who, having examined the problem, has come to the conclusion that the practical difficulties in the way of any formula are almost insuperable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th August, 1924; col. 2601, Vol. 176.]
That was a statement of fact. What the right hon. Gentleman did not say to the House was that I went on to explain why it was impossible to deal with that question as a narrow separate question, and I said, following upon the statement which the right hon. Gentleman quoted:
One reason—I do not say the only reason—is the present rating and valuation system. In fact, the question of necessitous areas raises the whole problem of the relations between national and local finance. Until that problem is overhauled it is quite hopeless to expect that we could deal with necessitous areas as necessitous areas. Therefore the Government has pursued the policy of extending the grants that it makes to all local authorities in whose area there is unemployment. The announcement made by the Minister of Labour will be of very substantial assistance to local authorities, more particularly when that is reinforced by the new rates of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Act. While those benefits will not relieve the municipalities, they will relieve the rates levied by the hoard of guardians, and, therefore, will relieve the local ratepayers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th August, 1924; col. 2602, Vol. 176.]
From which it is clear that although they had no power to deal with necessitous areas as necessitous areas there was a sincere attempt made by the late Government to lighten the burden by enlarging the resources of the local authorities. That policy has since been reversed by the present Government. They have reduced the grants from the Unemployment Grants Committee, and they have made it increasingly difficult for any local authority to get any assistance. They have through their administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act flung back on to the Poor Law workers who previously had been in receipt of unemployment benefit. Our view is that this problem necessitates some administrative and far-reaching changes between national and local finance. The Minister of Health has proposed block grants, and I would like to ask him a question on this point because the Debate two days ago ended in an atmosphere of doubt as to what was the precise position of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman said that he felt that this problem of necessitous areas could be dealt with only by the establishment of a system of block grants. He was asked if that principle had received the approval of the Cabinet, but he gave no answer. I would like the Minister of Health to tell us whether this is a Cabinet decision, whether it is in accordance with the evidence which was submitted to the Meston Committee which considered this question, and whose subsequent history has been "wropt in mystr'y"; and whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with the system of block grants. As I understand the right hon. Gentleman's proposal for block grants, it appears to me to be a proposal to limit State expenditure. Some block grants may be good if they are large enough, but a block grant may be too small, and, if the block grant is going to be strictly limited and shared out, so to speak, the only effect of the policy will be to relieve the necessitous arras at the expense of others which are not, perhaps, quite so necessitous. Our view is that that is not a satisfactory way of dealing with a great problem such as that which has arisen during the years of trade depression. I wish now to come to another statement made by
the right hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech:
The second feature of the Debate that impressed itself upon me is the extraordinary unanimity with which hon. Members opposite have avoided the whole subject which was really before the Committee today. If they had been ordered by sonic superior authority to adopt every device to avoid a. discussion of the coal stoppage and try to lead the House off on some extraneous subjects, they could not have done so with greater determination than they have shown.
That is a charge which I rise this afternoon to accept. I am going to charge the Government with using its administrative power deliberately against the miners during the stoppage. The right hon. Gentleman in his speech praised the boards of guardians. He said:
On the whole, I feel that boards of guardians deserve the highest possible credit for the manner in which they have handled a very difficult situation.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I expected that hon. Members would approve of that sentiment. I charge the Government. on the second day of the general strike, with putting into operation part of its war plan against the miners in Circular 703.

Mr. SPEAKER: That would seem to be a matter which should come on the Vote for the salary of the Minister, and not on this Vete. I cannot see that a Supplementary Estimate such as is contained in this Bill gives an opening for that discussion; it could only be taken on the salary of the Minister. The money here is for Grants for the Relief of Unemployment.

Mr. GREENWOOD: My point, Sir, is that, arising from that Circular and from the circumstances which gave rise to that Circular, the boards of guardians ultimately were driven to apply for loans which to-day are under discussion. That was how I understood the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that would give an opening to the hon. Member to raise the much wider question of the action of the Minister to which he was referring.

Mr. CLYNES: On that point of Order. May we conclude that the Minister of Health on Tuesday was not justified in reproaching the Opposition with not having discussed the mining dispute?

Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot see how hon. Members could have brought that into the present discussion. I think I should have been bound not to allow it.

Mr. GREENWOOD: If I may quote the words of the Minister on this point, following upon what I have already quoted, he went on to say:
But, whatever views hon. Members opposite may take about the desirability of avoiding discussion of the coal stoppage, I must make it clear to the Committee that, had it not been for the stoppage in the coal industry, we should not have been here this afternoon asking for this Estimate."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1926; cols. 1815–1816, Vol. 199.]

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that affords any claim for an argument on the whole question. It would have been my duty to stop the Minister, as well as members of the Opposition, from going into that.

Mr. GREENWOOD: Of course, I bow to your ruling. It is clear that, when the known resources of the boards of guardians were exhausted, they had to have recourse to loans. Those loans are the matter which has been under discussion, and it is to the policy in relation to those loans that I wish to refer. Many boards of guardians, faced with exceptional expenditure arising from a state of affairs that they could not foresee, applied to the Minister of Health for power to borrow money. The right hon. Gentleman had in his Circular laid down what he regarded as desirable maximum scales of relief. Those scales of relief were lower in many cases than were being given by boards of guardians, and, although it was not within his power to enforce those maximum scales, yet, when local authorities sought his approval for loans to carry on their day-to-day work, he, in a large number of cases, used that power to compel local authorities to reduce their scales of relief down to his maximum level, and, I believe, in some cases even below it. That was, no doubt, within his legal powers. I am not accusing the right hon. Gentleman of having broken the law, but I do suggest that he has administered the Poor Law of 1834 in the spirit of 1834—that there has been an implication in the administration of his Department that the miners' wives and dependants, and all those concerned with the coal stoppage,
were to be treated, if not as criminals, at least as bordering upon the criminal class.
4.0 P.M.
There has also been the implication, and it was found, I think, in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary on Tuesday, that in recent years, and particularly during this present dispute, the miners have acted somehow or another in a way which was a fraud upon the public. The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) some little time ago asked a question with regard to the numbers of miners in receipt of out-relief in 1893, in 1921 and in 1926, and those figures were used in the discussion on the Estimate by the Parliamentary Secretary. What was the implication? The implication was that the miners were deliberately allowing themselves to be pauperised. The fact that the 1893 stoppage was not a national stoppage was conveniently brushed aside by the Parliamentary Secretary. The fact that the circumstances of 1921 and 1926 were entirely different was also ignored. In 1921, the unions had much larger funds than they had in 1926, and were able, therefore, to do much more to sustain their own members. Moreover, the stoppage was not nearly so long; it did not endure for half the time that the present stoppage has been in existence; and it was, therefore, perfectly natural that, in the stoppage of 1921, there should not be so large a call upon the boards of guardians as there has been during the present stoppage. In the intervening years, the unions have been paying off the debts that they accumulated, and the miners themselves have been paying off the personal debts they contracted during the stoppage of 1921; and during this present stoppage, with less resources behind them, they were inevitably driven to seek the aid of the Poor Law authorities. I would point out also that, in 1921, as the Parliamentary Secretary reminded us, the relief that was given was on loan, and those loans to miners have since been under repayment. That, of course, has crippled the miners when they found themselves placed in the circumstances of another great trade dispute. If we look at the total volume of Poor Law expenditure, what does it amount to? You "have about 1,100,000 miners in Great Britain. Those by the
terms of the Merthyr Tydvil judgment, except in cases of dire necessity, have not been receiving relief. Those miners have perhaps with their wives and children something like 3,000,000 dependants. The Parliamentary Secretary gave the number of persons on the coalfields relieved up-to-date. That number, 1,162,592, he said, quite rightly, was a terrible figure. But I put this point to the House. Large as that figure is, it is not nearly half the total number of miners' wives and children in the country. In other words, it does not appear as though there has been an excessive amount of out-relief given to the dependants of those who are engaged in the present stoppage.
If we measure it in terms of money, then, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, £250,000 per week has been devoted to the relief of miners' dependants and others affected by the stoppage. If you exclude the miners as having been outside the scope of the Poor Law and consider it as an expenditure per head in respect of miners' wives and children during the last seven months, it amounts to the magnificent sum of 3d. per day per head. It might have been rather larger, if the right hon. Gentleman had not imposed conditions, such as he has done, in the granting of loans. But is anyone to assume from that, as apparently the Parliamentary Secretary assumed, that because miners' wives and children during this stoppage have on the average been receiving in out-relief 3d. per person per day, there is some grave moral defect in the coalfields and that the sums distributed have been excessive? According to the figures given the other day, during the first six months of the stoppage, to the period ending 31st October, the total amount of out-relief disbursed in the mining areas was only, and I use the word "only" quite advisedly, £5,800,000. That means that for six months the public maintenance of the whole of the dependants of the miners in the coalfields of Great Britain was equivalent to a penny on the Income Tax. It is perfectly true that that may be a serious burden to the local authorities, and we know that a considerable number of local authorities have urged upon the Minister the policy that we from these benches have urged upon him time and time again, that national difficulties should be the subject of national treatment; but, if you look at that figure and have regard to the large
number of people employed and the poverty of those people when they began this dispute, the remarkable thing is not the large amount of money which has had to be borrowed by boards of guardians, but the extremely reasonable sum which they have borrowed for the purpose.
The only other important source of public money is that expended on school meals, and that, of course, has eked out the Poor Law expenditure. But, according to an answer given in this House, during the first 12 weeks of the dispute the total amount spent on school meals was £225,000, which amounts to 2d. per week per child in the coalfields; and, as during the summer holidays many local authorities, no doubt with the approval or at all events with the connivance of the Government, suspended the school meals, and as all of them have not carried them on to the same extent since, the average expenditure has been less than 2d. per child per week. The reason it has been possible to carry on the dispute with so small a call upon public funds has been the extraordinary amount of assistance which has come to the miners from other quarters both at home and abroad.
The statement was made in the House by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that the children now were better fed and healthier than when their fathers were at work. The Prime Minister himself, in his quite improper letter to America on this question, made the same point. The Minister gave some explanation of that statement the other day, but it was not a very convincing explanation. Are we from this statement to draw the conclusion that the policy of the Government is low wages and healthier children? Are we to assume that if the miners were to be perpetually poorer than they were before the stoppage began the children would be healthier Even if we assume that which is open to the gravest doubt, that the school population is healthier and better fed, it is to the credit of the local authorities rather than to the credit of the Government. But, even if that be true, no one—neither the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health nor the Parliamentary Secretary—has ever said that the miners' wives and the miners' children under school age are healthier and better fed than when the bread-winners were at work, and I say
that in limiting the resources of the boards of guardians—in attempting to curtail their expenditure when they needed loans —the right hon. Gentleman has, however unwillingly, really been depressing the standard of life of the miners' wives and the youngest of the miners' children.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman says that his reports tell him that all is well, but the personal experience of many Members on these benches, and I include myself among them, is that there has been and is the most serious hardship among mothers and young children, and that very largely because the boards of guardians have been driven to reduce their scales of relief under pressure of financial necessity, and because some boards of guardians have gone so far as to suspend entirely out-relief to miners' dependants. According to the Parliamentary Secretary, there are 24 cases in which boards of guardians have resolved that out-relief shall not ordinarily be given to dependants of miners. As 78 boards of guardians account for 80 per cent. of the mining population of this country, it seems pretty clear that something like one-third of the boards of guardians in the mining areas have suspended out-relief. The Parliamentary Secretary went on to explain that that had had really beneficial results. His words, which I think I ought to quote, because I do not wish to misrepresent him, were that where this policy of abolishing out-relief and offering miners' wives and families only the workhouse, had been adopted,
there has been a substantial reduction in the number of genuine applications for relief in an institution."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1926; cols. 1718–19, Vol. 199.]
What does that mean? It means that, in the hon. Gentleman's view, those who refused to go into institutions were immoral, dishonest people who had been sponging on the Poor Law, and that therefore, some of the money which had been granted on loan had been granted to this particularly vicious class of people" who, when faced with the alternative of the workhouse, refused it, because no doubt they could live in greater comfort in their own homes. I do not say that the right hon. Gentleman has encouraged boards of guardians to limit relief to indoor relief, but I do say that he has permitted it to be done with too little opposition from him. It was not because the miners' wives and
children were well off that they refused to go into institutions. There were more reasons than one. In the first place, it meant a separation of the breadwinner from his wife and children or from his brothers and sisters, and it is perfectly natural that a miner's wife, faced with the prospect of leaving her husband and her sons who are pit boys at home alone, preferred to stay with them rather than enter the institution. They refused it, because" although their pride had been sufficiently broken for them to receive out-relief, they could not stomach the further test of making it so public as to go into the workhouse. I think, further, that when a flood of people did go the accommodation was such that decent people naturally came out of the workhouse as quickly as they could. I think we ought here to ask if the offer of the workhouse is the Conservative policy. Is it the policy that they would be willing to adopt in normal times, or is it a policy only to be adopted in order to crush a body of workers who are engaged in a dispute? If the workhouse be their general policy, then they are back to 1834 or earlier. If it be not their policy, why has the right hon. Gentleman in these days permitted something like one-third of the boards of guardians on the coalfields to refuse out-relief?
Another point to which I wish to refer is the statement made by the Minister in which he said he had stated it publicly and would repeat it in the House, that the present stoppage had been financed by the boards of guardians. I want to view that in the light of the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary that in the great majority of cases relief to individuals has been granted on loan and will be recovered when the borrowers have returned to work. So far from this enormous sum of money which has been borrowed by guardians being a drain either on the State or the local authorities, apparently it is to be recovered from the miners after the end of the present stoppage. Therefore, it seems to me that the Government can claim no credit for their generosity in granting loans to boards of guardians, because it appears that the boards of guardians, having borrowed this money, are merely lending it to the miners who will be responsible for repayment after the settlement of the dispute. It has used these loans merely
as an instrument in its campaign against the miners, as an opportunity of limiting still further the assistance which could be given to the miners' wives and children, as an incitement to boards of guardians to offer miners' wives and children the workhouse, with the knowledge that large numbers of them would prefer to starve outside; and so far from us admitting the case of the right hon. Gentleman, as he appeared to think, we challenge the whole of his policy in the administration of these loans. When the history of this unfortunate Government comes to be written, in the long record of somewhat mean measures, the most disgraceful chapter will be the abuse of its financial power by using its influence to strike at those engaged in the dispute through their wives and children. Our Poor Law system in a great national stoppage or during a period of severe unemployment is in the nature of an industrial Red Cross. It ought to have been kept outside the present dispute. There is high authority for saying that starvation should not have been the weapon with which to beat the miners. The Government's policy in relation to loans to boards of guardians and its general administration of the Poor Law is frankly that of firing on the Bed Cross. That may make hon. Members smile—I hope their consciences are comfortable—but I can think of no nearer simile than that the Government in a great industrial dispute have tried to sabotage the Red Cross, and when they could not sabotage it they fired upon it, and of all the mean things this Government has done this is by far the meanest.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I wish to put to the Minister a question to which he did not condescend to reply last night with regard to remarks as to grants to necessitous areas which indicated that the Government were possibly changing their non possumus attitude and were going to adopt some scheme for their relief. He said that by the system of block grants it might he possible to get. a scheme which would bring relief to those necessitous areas without doing injustice to any other part of the country. That was a permanent policy to which he looked forward for a solution of the problem. How soon can he put this permanent policy into operation? The urgency of the question is beyond
dispute. Several years ago the Minister himself was the spokesman of a deputation to the Coalition Government pleading the case of these necessitous areas. The arguments which he used then apply tenfold to-day. If the question was urgent then, it is infinitely more urgent now. The burden due to abnormal unemployment should be a national and not a local charge. It is not the fault of the employers or the employed in any particular district that trade is bad and unemployment severe. It is due to national and international causes and should be met from a national fund. Why should residential areas such as Bourne- mouth, Blackpool and Southport escape with a rate of 5s. in the pound when industrial areas have to bear double and treble that amount? To give an illustration from my own district of the way in which these burdens are being piled up compared with pre- war days, the out-relief for a week in Middlesbrough for the year ending March, 1914, averaged £326 per week. To-day it averages £4,200 a week, an increase of 13 times, making a smashing burden on industry. If trade is to revive these excessive burdens must be reduced. Rates, unlike taxes, fall whether profits are made or not, and are a first charge on industry. It is impossible to compete in the markets of the world if you have these heavy rates on the producers, and I hope the Minister can say something which will give some ray of hope to those in these areas. I should like to ask him in regard to the policy he is going to adopt with regard to loans to local authorities. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that the present advances were made on a purely temporary basis. What is going to be the permanent basis for these loans? Is he going to allow them to have a five years' period for repayment, or is he going to insist on payment within a year or two? Surely he could give us some information on that score so that the Guardians may know where they stand in these terrible times.

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I represent a constituency part of which may be described, at present at any rate, as a necessitous area, and therefore I feel I must intervene for a, few moments in the Debate. I am always asked, both in public and in private, in Durham, by
eager questioners whether I consider it fair that our rates in Durham should be so high when other parts of the country are paying considerably less. My answer is always this. If you ask me as a ratepayer of the county of Durham whether I agree with you or not, my answer is in the affirmative. It seems to me monstrous that I should have to pay, I do not like to say how many shillings in the £, when people who live in the south of England are apparently so much better off. But supposing you asked me as a resident of Bournemouth, or any such place, I should naturally ask you why are your rates so high, and the answer would be that we are an industrial area and we are extremely hard pressed, and as an industrial area we consider we are working not only for ourselves but for the country as a whole, and therefore that we should not have to pay more and this should be a national burden when times are bad. To which, I think, the gentleman from Bournemouth would reply: "Is it not true that you in Durham have a local authority which is extremely extravagant? Is it not true that they are demanding a much higher rate than should be necessary and are asking too much of the ratepayer?" and I should find it somewhat difficult to answer in the negative. That is a question 'which we who live in the industrial north always have to consider. We know we are in a particularly difficult time. Times may be better later on, but why should we suppose that the rest of the country should have to share in our extravagance?
I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Nelson (Mr. Greenwood) and it struck me that all the time he was trying to make out that the attitude of the Government in the present crisis has been against the miners and that their whole effort has been to reduce the amount of relief. I speak on behalf of a constituency which is largely mining but which contains a great number of other people who are not miners. Those people are ratepayers and it is fair to suppose that the Government, in looking after the interests of the community as a whole, has to consider the interests of the ratepayers whether they are miners or not. I am amazed at the way the small shopkeepers and small ratepayers in my own
part of the world manage to carry on at all. They are not interested in this dispute. It is doing them untold damage and yet they are called upon to carry on and to support them. I heard it said that up to a certain period in the strike the estimated amount for the feeding of school children throughout the mining areas was only some £250,000. All I know is that the estimate for Durham to the end of December alone is £300,000. That all has to come out of the rates. Do not suppose for a moment that I do not consider school children should be fed. I believe it is right. I am only mentioning the fact to show the burden the ratepayer has to bear in the counties that are affected. "Interruption.] I am not saying it is extravagant. I am saying that is the burden the ratepayer has to bear, and the ratepayer is essentially the man upon whom the future of the country largely depends. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the children?"] The children are being fed, but the ratepayer has to bear the burden, and it is a burden upon industry.
We have to get back to work. That is the great point we all have to remember. It is the duty of the Government to supervise the grants that are made by local authorities. I do not say the time may not come when it may be necessary to go into the whole question of this matter of rates. I believe certain burdens are national burdens, and that sooner or later it will be the duty of the country as a whole to shoulder them, but for the time being, they are not national burdens. The people in the coal area or any other area affected by the strike are not all miners. You have to consider the small shopkeepers, small landed proprietors, and small farmers. They are all being ground down by the burden of rates, and it is absurd to suppose that they are interested in the success either of the miners or the mineowners. They are outside this business altogether, and yet they have to pay these exorbitant rates in order to carry on an industrial dispute. The thing is obviously grossly unfair, and the sooner you all realise it the better. What alarms me, and I think depresses me, more than anything else is the knowledge that there is a body of opinion which will not face facts. I allude especially to a speech made a night
or two ago by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), in which he said it was the duty of the State to make people happy and comfortable. That is a policy which is represented in the House and very largely in the country, and in theory it is perfectly understandable and very desirable. But is it the policy of the Government to make people happy and comfortable? Has it ever been the policy of the State to make people happy and comfortable? Advocates of that school of thought appear to forget a great truth. Man can only live by work. He cannot be kept. It is not and never will be the duty of the State to make people happy and comfortable unless they work. I listened attentively to the hon. Member's speech and the word "work," the idea that a man had a duty to the State, was never for a moment mentioned.
What is the State? We talk glibly about the State and about the Government. The State and the Government are only the whole total of us. How can the whole total of us be expected to keep the individual? It seems to me that so long as hon. Members, or any number of hon. Members, opposite go about the country with the idea that it is the duty of the State to keep the rest of the population happy and comfortable, we shall never get to a better state of things.. It is all bound up in this particular matter. Here are hard-working and would-be workers taxed in the way of rates to an enormous extent, and the Government are blamed for not allowing the rate of taxation to be increased indefinitely, because there is a great industrial dispute in progress. It may be that the ratepayers of the county of Durham or the majority of them who are not miners would very likely like to have this dispute brought to an end. Meanwhile, they are called on indefinitely to pay for the expenses of the strike. What is the result? The situation grows worse and worse, the condition of the country grows worse and the stoppage goes on, and all that hon. Members opposite can say is that the Government are to blame because the rates are not made larger still; because there is some control over them. If this thing goes on in this way, there can only be one possible end to it all. In the old days when Rome was a declining Empire the Government of
the day, the State, decided that the only way to appease and keep happy an enormous population was to give them bread and games. There was no question of work and no question of duty to the State. Rome perished, and all countries will perish so long as it is thought that any great bulk of the community have a right to demand to be supported by the great body of workers in the country.

Mr. BATEY: The last speaker and I are near neighbours. We represent divisions which touch each other, and I have listened with interest to his speech. One of his arguments was that the small ratepayers are suffering during this dispute. They are. Why are they suffering'? Because the bulk of the small ratepayers voted for the Tory party. We told them two years ago at the General Election what to expect if they put a Tory Government into power. They have had two years' experience, and now they are beginning to realise the sad mistake they made two years ago. They will find that so long as a Tory Government is in power it will not be in their interests that such a Government will pursue their policy, but it will be against the interests of the small ratepayers as well as against the interest of the miners. The hon. And gallant Member also said that some local 6 authorities in Durham are extravagant. I wish he had told us which local authorities in Durham had been extravagant. Our complaint is that the present Minister of Health has been so reactionary that he will not allow the local authorities in Durham to carry out their functions. He has prevented them from doing what they had a right to do. If any responsibility rests upon anyone for any extravagance in the County of Durham, it rests upon the Minister of Health and this Tory Government, and not upon the elected people on the various councils in the County of Durham. The hon. and gallant Member seemed to be upset because one of my hon. Friends had said that the working classes ought to be happy and comfortable.

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I did not say that. I said that an hon. Member opposite had stated that it was the duty of the Government to make them happy and comfortable.

Mr. BATEY: I am going to repeat that. It is the duty of this Government and
it is the duty of every Government to try to make everyone happy and comfortable. This Tory Government seems to think that only the rich should be happy and comfortable. [HON. MEMBERS: "Whether they work or not I"] They consider that the less work they do the happier they should be. We believe that it is the duty of the State to see that every man and woman should be happy and comfortable. I listened on Tuesday night to speeches delivered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and by the Minister of Health. I have had two days reflection upon those speeches, and I ask the House to look at two or three of the arguments used, especially by the Minister of Health. He said that he had no regrets. He actually declared that he had nothing to regret for anything that he had done or anything that he had left undone. It is amazing to me that any man in the position of the Minister of Health should look back upon the past seven months and say that he had no regrets. The last man to say that is the present Minister of Health, because he has by no means a clean slate. During the past seven months he has abolished two boards of guardians, one in my own county, elected by the people, serving the people and carrying out the mandate which they received from the people. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to abolish that board of guardians. If it were possible for the father of the present Minister of Health to look down from the spirit world, influenced by his own republican ideals, and see his son following this reactionary policy, one could imagine that he would regret that he had ever been the cause of bringing the Minister of Health into the world. It is a very reactionary policy for the Minister of Health, in these days, to say to the people who have elected boards of guardians, "You are not fit to elect these guardians. I am going to take the power away from you and to appoint my own people to manage the work of the board." In selecting his own people to carry on the work of the board, he has selected as chairman one of the most reactionary men in the North of England. He seems to have said to himself:

Mr. SPEAKER: This Vote is for loans to boards of guardians. I do not think that any other question comes in.

Mr. BATEY: The Minister of Health said on Tuesday, with a white sheet about him and a halo around his head, that he had no regrets for anything he had done. Surely, we are entitled to reply to that and to show that he ought to have regrets, and that if he has no regrets, at least the mining classes every hour of the day are regretting the fact that ever he was appointed Minister of Health.

Mr. SPEAKER: The regret must be connected with the Vote which we are discussing. We cannot go further.

Mr. PALING: On a point of Order. Where boards of guardians have been superseded because in the opinion of the Minister they are not carrying out their duties in a proper manner, and other people have been put in to discharge the duties, is it not within the purview of any hon. Member to mention it in this Debate?

Mr. SPEAKER: Not further than it is connected with the conditions which the Minister has imposed in granting the loan. If it is connected with that, it is relevant to this Debate.

Mr. BATEY: I will leave that aspect of the question. I wanted to remind the Minister of Health of his sins during the past seven months, and he has many, but if I cannot pursue that line of debate, I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I may get another chance of reminding the hon. Gentleman of these things. He said on Tuesday that it had been rather astonishing to him to read in the newspapers from time to time suggestions that the Minister of Health had been responsible for the policy of starvation. He resented our suggestion that he was starving the mining classes. In a Circular which he issued on 5th May he laid it down that boards of guardians should only give to a married woman 12s. a week and 4s. for a child. Nothing was allowed for the husband or the sons. In many mining families there are two or three sons. Whatever the size of the family, they had only 12s. for the mother and 4s. for a child. I ask the Minister of Health whether that is not starvation.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain): On a point of Order. As various questions are being
addressed to me, Mr. Speaker, I ought to know whether I shall be in order in replying to them?

Mr. BATEY: I hope so.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member is not the authority on the subject. The Circular to which the hon. Member is referring is not connected with loans to guardians. I wish to know whether it is in order to refer to it?

Mr. BATEY: Before you rule on that point, Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out that this Circular was debated on Tuesday. The Minister of Health dealt with it and the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with it. Surely, when they dealt with the question on Tuesday we are entitled to reply.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must be guided by the scope of the Debate on Tuesday. I do not think I am justified in drawing it more narrowly on the present occasion, but everything must be connected with the terms and conditions on which these loans are granted by the Minister.

Mr. BATEY: Then I am entitled to submit that when the Minister of Health in this Circular laid it down that boards of guardians should be restricted to 12s. for a wife and 4s. for a child, he was instituting, so far as these miners' families were concerned, starvation. For 20 years I was a member of a board of guardians, and I was always taught that when a board of guardians gave relief it should be adequate relief. I submit that 12s. for a wife and 4s. for a child and nothing for the husband and nothing for the sons simply means starvation for the families of the miners. The Minister of Health attempted to justify his policy by referring to the disputes that took place in the mining industry in 1893, 1898, 1921 and the present dispute. The Parliamentary Secretary made the same comparison. The Minister of Health made a mistake when he answered a question by an hon. Member opposite. He resented the idea when we reminded him that in 1893 and 1898 the disputes were not national disputes and, therefore, it was unfair to give figures for 1893 and 1898 and compare them with the figures for the present year. In the dispute in 1893 only one district was out on strike. In 1898 only one district was on strike.
The right hon. Gentleman cannot compare 1893 or 1898 with 1921 or 1926. The Minister of Health made that mistake on Tuesday. He compared the expenditure in 1921 with the expenditure during the present dispute. He cannot compare 1921 with the present dispute. We commenced the struggle in 1921 with funds belonging to all our trade union organisations, and our people were in a much better position to fight than in 1926.
Since 1921 my own trade union, the Durham Miners' Association, has spent no less than £2,000,000 in relief, and at the start of the present dispute we had practically no funds. The Minister also justified his policy by saying that the children were better fed. What he said was:
We have had repeated reports that the children are actually better fed than they were when their fathers were in work." -[0FFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1926; col. 1818, Vol. 199.]
I should like him to have gone a little further and have produced some of those reports. I think he should tell us the districts where the "children are better fed than they were when their fathers were in work." I agree with the interjection last Tuesday, that if it be so—I do not believe it is—it reflects no credit on the coalowners as to the rate of wages which were paid before the stoppage took place. In my opinion it is not true that the children are better fed to-day than when their fathers were in work. In those places in the County of Durham where our men and women were wise enough to appoint a Labour majority on the Council at the last election we have been fortunate enough in having our children fed; but that again is no credit to the Minister of Health. What he has done is to encourage boards of guardians to reduce the 4s. a week paid for a child simply because the child was being fed at school.
Another result of the policy of the Minister of Health has been this. Through the impoverishment of our people by the action of this Tory Government we have had an epidemic of small-pox in Durham the like of which we have never seen before. I put it down to the impoverishment of our people. In one village in my constituency there have been over 300 cases of small-pox since the 19th October, and I unhesitatingly put it down to the fact,
not that the children have not been vaccinated but to the fact that they have not been fed, and were in such a condition of starvation, so weak, that the epidemic made them its victims. The Minister also referred to the fact that the guardans have had to apply to him for loans owing to the coal stoppage. No doubt the coal stoppage may have compelled boards of guardians to apply for loans for the purposes of outdoor relief. But some boards of guardians, especially those in the north of England, will have to continue to apply for loans. They will not be out of the wood when the stoppage ends. I have a letter here from the Bishop Auckland Board of Guardians, dated 22nd October, 1926, to the following effect:
By the direction of the Board of Guardians of this Union, I send hereunder a written copy of a resolution passed by them at their meeting yesterday, and I am to express the hope that you will be able to see your way to support the same.
This is the Resolution passed by this board of guardians:
That owing to the abnormal distress and the great charge on the local rates, and the fact that the present conditions in the industrial world are a national and not a parochial liability, representation be made to the Government to introduce legislation which will so amend the existing law that emergency relief granted during an industrial dispute shall become a national charge instead of being a local charge on local rates.
I agree with that Resolution. During a time like the present, when emergency relief compels boards of guardians to apply for a loan, it ought to be a national and not a local charge. The troubles of boards of guardians will not end when the stoppage ends, and I urge the Minister of Health to do something which will make this emergency relief a national and not a local charge. On Tuesday night the right hon. Gentleman referred to a block grant. I do not care whether it is in the nature of a block grant, or any other way, the money that is given to boards of guardians in order to keep our people alive should not be a burden on local rates. Then on Tuesday night the Minister also said that during the discussion we on these benches had carefully avoided any reference to the coal stoppage. What he said was a challenge to us on these benches, and I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will allow me to deal with the coal stoppage.

Mr. SPEAKER: Not unless it is connected with these particular loans.

Mr. BATEY: I will try to connect it. I do not want the Minister to think that we are afraid of dealing with the coal stoppage. Right from the start we have been talking about nothing else. Whenever we have had a chance, we have dealt with it in this House, and we have never neglected a chance on the platform of telling the people what we thought of this Government. We lay all the blame for this stoppage on the Prime Minister. Make no mistake about that. We believe that it would never have started if the present Prime Minister had not been a coalowner.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must keep to questions which are connected with these loans. He cannot roam over the whole field of the coal stoppage.

Mr. BATEY: The Minister of Health threw out a challenge on Tuesday. We believe that this coal stoppage is due entirely to the Government. If it had not been for the policy pursued by this Government—

Mr. SPEAKER: I really cannot allow the hon. Member to pursue that line. The subject must be connected with the money proposed to be granted in this Bill.

Mr. BATEY: I will leave it there. We may get another chance of telling the Minister of Health just what we think about this coal stoppage, and who we regard as being responsible for it. The Government have pursued the policy of trying to starve our people into surrender. It is a wrong policy. They should give boards of guardians sufficient money for outdoor relief without attaching obnoxious conditions to the loans. The fact that the Minister of Health is able to loan money to boards of guardians has made him into a sort of Mussolini. When boards of guardians go to him and ask for loans he attaches his own terms, and he will only give them the relief provided they do what he thinks they ought to do. That is a wrong policy. The policy of the Minister of Health could not be worse, and I hope he will he induced to change it. You will never be able to starve our people into submission. If the Prime Minister has learnt anything he should have learnt that the policy of the Government ought to be to see that these
people have at least sufficient to keep body and soul together.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: The last speaker has given us a very good insight as to what is at the real bottom of all the trouble we have had in the coal industry. He spoke contemptuously of the small ratepayers and said that they were suffering because they voted for a Tory Government two years ago. That is to say, that the miners do not accept the franchise of the people and say: "We will take our revenge on you for voting for a Tory Government two years ago." Everybody knows that when Labour gets a majority on the local council the small ratepayer suffers abominably worse. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] West Ham, and everywhere else. Wherever you get the local paid politicians drawing time and line for their work on local bodies, you will always find that they have to do something for their money, and they sweat the rest of the ratepayers. The hon. Member who has just spoken has described this Government as being mean. I take quite an opposite view. He said that it was a mean Government because they had not given more money. I think they have done a great deal of harm by their action in connection with parochial relief to the miners and their families in this strike, this lock-out, or stoppage. I do not think they have been mean. I think they have been guilty of a great deal of folly, and I object to the granting of any more money. It is the greatest possible folly to give men money in order to enable them to carry on a hopeless dispute against an economic law. You are doing the greatest possible harm by such a policy. You are not helping them; you are hurting them. It does them no good. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is the economic law?"] The. economic law that you cannot take more out of an industry than the industry will yield. That is the position of the coal trade.
5.0 P.M.
I agree with the hon. Member that the Prime Minister may he partly responsible; but not for the reason he gave. I think the subsidy was a mistake. It encouraged the miners to go on, and I am perfectly sure that if there had been a Labour Government in power they would never have granted that subsidy. If men are to refuse work when it is offered to them,
they should refuse it at their own expense and not at the expense of the general body of citizens. I have many people in my own constituency, where there is no peat to be had, and they are consumed with indignation against His Majesty's Government for handing over money, at the expense of the general taxpayer, to men who can earn far more than the people in that part of the country. Then they see the money coming from Russia—I wish it had all come from Russia, but it should have been taken possession of at once by the Home Secretary and handed over to the boards of guardians to see that it would reach the miners instead of being spent on Communist agitators. There will be no balance-sheet to show how that money was spent. I would like very much to know how much of it reached the working miner, and the same with the money that has come from America, if any has come at all.

Mr. VIANT: On a point of Order, may I ask whether this money is included in this Supplementary Estimate?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: It should be included, but I daresay no one can find out where it is. The Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said it was the duty of the Government to keep people happy and cheerful. What happiness is to come to them from the other side of the House? You have only to look at their newspapers; there is nothing more melancholy than they are. They are as melancholy as their tune, "The Red Flag." My Scottish friends ought to know their Burns, who said:
If happiness bath not her seat and centre in the breast,
Ye may he wise and rich or great, but never can be blest,
Nae pleasures, nae treasures can mak us happy lang,
The heart's aye the part aye that maks us richt or wrang.
It is not wealth that brings happiness, as these men, with their sordid material views of life, say. Happiness is a matter of natural good health and heredity. If you have had the luck to choose strong and vigorous ancestors, then you have good and vigorous health, but if you have chosen ancestors who are not strong and vigorous, then you will be weak and puny and discontented.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The Minister of Health has said that it is public money that has kept the coal strike going. On the question of the feeding of school children, I will admit at once that in those particular districts where the Labour party are in the majority the treatment of the children and the women has been more generous during this dispute than in any other previous dispute of which I have cognisance. I do not think the Minister should complain very much about that. In those districts where the Conservative party is in the majority, the law has been twisted to suit the coalowners. In so far as there has been a breakdown among the men, they have been driven hack to work by sheer starvation where the Tory boards of guardians have twisted the law in such a way as to refuse relief of any description, even to the most obvious cases of destitution. This is a clear indication of the class character of this struggle. If you compare the difference between what is going on in South Wales and what is happening in Derbyshire and Warwick shire, you are driven to the conclusion that the Conservative party are participating in what is a class war. Where Labour has a majority, we are doing our best to protect the women and children, and that comes as a revelation to the members of the Conservative party. It is a new ordering of power, a new use of power. In the past, power has always been on the side of the employer and it has always been used on the side of the employer against the poor and against the workers. In those district's power is changing hands, and, as far as the Minister of Health has allowed it, where the workers have got the power they have done their best to help their own crowd, and good luck to them.

Mrs. PHILIPSON: The hon. Member has referred to those districts where there are Labour majorities on the boards of guardians. Is he not aware that in certain districts the people who did not vote Labour at the last General Election have not received help? I am speaking as a Member for a mining area and I have had it proved that people who voted for the Conservative party at the last General Election had been refused help. Is that introducing the human element? These people are miners and their wives, and
is it right and fair that these people should suffer because they did not vote for the Labour party at the last election?

Mr. WALLHEAD: I said nothing of the kind. What I said was that the workers had been helped, and I said workers without distinction as to politics at all.
Mrs. PHILIPSON: Hon. Members on that side know full well that in most of the mining areas, and in a good many other areas where the workers have been in want, people have helped to run soup kitchens and they have done other work on behalf of the workers, all quite irrespective of party. It has not been made a party matter at all.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The hon. Lady will have an opportunity of putting her case. I said nothing about political distinctions. I was speaking of the power exercised by boards of guardians towards the families of men who are engaged in this dispute. I say that, to their honour, those boards have helped their own people. You have starved people indiscriminately in the Midlands, and there the boards of guardians made no distinction as to whether the people are Labour or Conservative. They have put the screw on them all. Their cry is not that the people are Labour or Conservative; their cry is that the people are attacking the profits of the employing classes and demanding a living wage, as they have a right to do. Wherever there is a Tory board of guardians, it is doing its best to drive the people back to conditions that are a disgrace in order to protect their own class. Over two years ago, the Prime Minister himself, dealing with unemployment, said that we had to to make up our minds whether it was endemic or epidemic. The Conservative party has done nothing to deal with unemployment, which is worse now than it was when they came in. It was worse before this dispute than when they came in. They have never sought to find the causes of unemployment in national conditions or in international conditions. Our troubles in districts such as I represent did not begin when this dispute began; they began two or three years ago when the steel trade went wrong and when the coal trade went wrong, and I say that unemployment depends almost entirely upon the policies which are pursued in this House. I say, and my
party says, that because unemployment to a large extent depends upon the policies pursued by this House that this House should accept its responsibility and give some aid to those districts.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam) talked about the extravagance of local authorities in industrial areas. If he were here I would like to ask him what he means by extravagance. He spoke about the feeding of school children and what that has cost during the last six or seven months. I asked him whether he thought the feeding of starving school children was extravagance, and he answered, "I do not say so." If you have a large working-class population, such as in Merthyr Tydvil, where we have no other industries but coal and steel, and where for years before this dispute there were thousands of men unemployed, what are the boards of guardians to do? They cannot allow these people to starve, and if they pay out relief they must put the charge upon the rates. If that charge comes continually upon the rates, year after year, then the rates must go up, particularly if the pits are stopped and the rateable value gets less. Are they not justified in saying that the Ministry of Health should take its share of responsibility for the burdens upon those localities? What is called extravagance is the mere claim of humanity, and, so far as I can see, there are no other means of meeting the conditions that exist in those places. The Conservative party regard poverty as part of the divine ordination. It is part of a system, and it is held that poverty cannot be obviated, that it is here and that we cannot get away from it. You say that, although we have poor, we must not let them get too poor. I say that poverty is a criminal disgrace to a society like ours, that it is only here because of human stupidity, and that human reason can obviate it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Hear, hear! I am glad you admit it.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I do not care whose stupidity it is. Poverty is no part of any law, human or divine. It is merely part of a system whereby the powers of men to create wealth are not sufficient to meet their natural demands. That is
so in this country at the present time. In this country there are at the disposal of modern society, powers for producing wealth undreamed of. All this misery that we have around us—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy): The hon. Member is travelling rather wide of the subject before the House.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Yes, but there has been a fair amount of width, or it may he of that sort of dialectical road-making of which Chesterton speaks, before the Romans came to Rye. I want to urge that the Ministry of Health should be rather more generous than it has been in the pmt. The Government should begin to alter their policy towards the whole problem of poverty and should regard it from a different point of view. The Minister says that there has been a Committee sitting, and that it has reported on the question of necessitous areas. Their terms of reference were that they were to report upon schemes that were submitted to them. I want to ask the Minister what were the schemes submitted and who submitted them? Did the Government submit a scheme, and if not, why not? Is it true that they are at their wit's end and do not know which way to turn? Here they are confronted with tremendous possibilities, with a luxurious society, with wealth abounding on every hand, with science extending, and yet they come here with their miserable plea for an additional grant of £3,250,000, to go on paying miserable doles of 8s. or 9s. a week to starving people, with 2s. or 3s. for a child. If I were going on a holiday, or the hon. Lady who interrupted me just now, were going on a holiday, and she sent her dog to be kept at a dogs' home while she was away, it would cost her 10s. 6d. a week at least. Yet, the Tory party thinks that 4s. a week for a child is quite enough. It is a disgrace, and it is time
the whole thing was stopped.

Captain BOURNE: It is quite obvious from the ruling recently given that I should not be in order in following the hon. Member who has just spoken. But I do think that the House owes a debt of gratitude to hon. Members opposite for the statement of their view. It is quite obvious to anyone who has listened to the discussion that the real grievance
against the Minister of Health is that he has imposed conditions on the making of loans. It must be remembered, in the first place, that these loans are made out of the taxpayers' pockets; and, secondly, that it is universally admitted that the reason why the Minister has had to come to this House and ask for this Supplementary Estimate is the continuance of the coal stoppage. I do not share the opinion expressed by hon. Members opposite that the localities which had the decision in these matters in their own hands, should not bear the burden. It is the consequence of their own action. I fail to see why my constituents, who are 'not interested in coal in any way whatever, except as consumers, who have no part in this battle and who are suffering and have suffered very great inconvenience and loss because of the stoppage—I do not see why money should be taken from our pockets because the two sides choose to prolong the struggle to a perfectly unnecessary extent, thereby inflicting great damage on the country. It has been admitted by hon. Members who have spoken that the effect of the stoppage is very damaging to the country's trade and is putting up rates in many areas. I suggest that those who are responsible for leading both sides should take these matters into consideration before they wantonly launch the country upon a disastrous stoppage of this kind. They should not take that action and then come and whine to this House for money for those whom they have injured by their action. That is all I wish to say.

Mr. BARNES: Every time this question of the necessitous areas comes before the House, it is apparent that the problem grows graver and graver. If the speech of the last speaker is the contribution of the Universities to this problem, then I feel that the sooner that kind of attitude of mind is blotted out the better.

Captain BOURNE: I do not represent a University.

Mr. BARNES: One would at least think that the amount of University influence in Oxford would influence Oxford's representative to a greater extent than that. Anyway, the hon. and gallant Member cannot speak in any sense for his Government, because every Government that is responsible for the administration of the Ministry of
Health, knows that the question of necessitous areas is becoming one of the gravest in local government. It is true that to-night we are considering this problem in a limited sense, because the Estimate before us arises from the coal stoppage. But surely it is apparent, even to hon. Members opposite, that the sum of £3,250,000 does not represent the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy to all the local areas concerned. All that the coal stoppage has done has been to aggravate and to bring out in a more dramatic way the steady development of the bankruptcy that faces local authorities in these areas. After a moment's consideration, one cannot argue that it is clue to the extravagance, the maladministration or the lack of administrative ability, in the various areas. The Government have their appointed guardians in West Ham, the district from which I come. Our poor rates there are still 9s. in the pound, and that is so after all the cutting down of relief scales to the barest possible measure. The appointed guardians in West Ham are slowly starving hundreds of people who have been unemployed for many years.
If there is anything in the arguments of hon. Members opposite, why cannot the appointed guardians in West Ham—not the elected guardians and not Labour representatives—why cannot the nominees of the Government bring down the poor rate in that area? They have certainly stopped some of the borrowing, but of the total burden of the rates—23s. and 24s. in the £—over 9s. is due to the Poor Law. It is due entirely to unemployment. The reason why many of these local authorities have had to come. to the Ministry for additional loans during the coal stoppage is not that the coal stoppage of itself has bankrupted their finance, but- because it represents an additional strain after six years of unemployment, when their resources have been exhausted. Take the statement issued by the Minister of Health himself on 2nd August last. What do his own charts display? They show that from 1920, when we had the beginning of this industrial and financial stoppage in this country, the only period in which there has been an easement in the charge for destitution was the period when we had a Labour
Government in office. That is shown in statistics submitted by the Ministry.
The Estimate before us is for £3,250,000. Again it is to be advanced in the form of loans to the various necessitous areas. That means that the loans represent additional liabilities on the industries in those areas; it means that once more we are penalising in a two-fold sense those factors that go to make up production in this country. It is not areas like Bournemouth, which represent a permanent source of wealth in this country. You get your Bournemouth's, rich residential areas, because people get their incomes in industrial centres and spend them in areas like Bournemouth. There is no wealth created in Bournemouth. That is not where the industrial supremacy of Great Britain comes from; it comes from our industrial areas. If you undermine for a long period the industrial resilience of this country, eventually the disease will spread throughout the country. That is what has been happening in the last six years. No speech from the opposite side of the House appears to be cognisant of what is developing under the term "necessitous areas." It started six years ago in one or two localities like West Ham and Poplar, at which hon. Members think they have only to point the finger of scorn and they have used all the arguments that- are necessary. It started in West Ham and Poplar because they represent the very bottom of the industrial system.
There are West Ham and Poplar, Bedwelty, Middlesbrough and areas of that sort. The vast mass of the people resident there are of one kind of wage, living in one type of house and engaged in the same type of industry. Immediately you get a great amount of unemployment over a long period, a large percentage of the people come under the term "unemployed," and are forced on the guardians. The people living there are less fitted than any other community to bear the burden, for they are casual and low-paid workers. But workers and industries go together. Where there are workers there are workshops. Working men cannot afford to live away from the workshops. It is only Income Tax paying people who can afford to live away from the workshops. The financial policy of Conservatism, in placing the burden of poverty on the shoulders of the
workers in the form of rents and rates has the effect ultimately of placing a charge on industry. The factories bear charges that they should not bear. It leads to a restriction of the production of necessities, and to the encouragement of expenditure or extravagance. That is all the argument that the hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam) represented here tonight. His argument went to prove, as did that of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne), that the people of Oxford and Bournemouth and other residential areas have no responsibility to the necessitous areas, the great factory and industrial centres, where are the people who produce the wealth. That was the whole burden of their argument. If that is to be the position of the party opposite, it is - their policy which will ultimately bring about a worsening of the situation and an undermining of the effectiveness of British industry.
I will illustrate this point by quoting the experience of my own locality in order to point out to hon. Members opposite that the necessitous areas difficulty in its origin and development has nothing to do with the coal stoppage. It is much deeper rooted, and it represents a problem much graver than any industrial dispute. In March, 1920, the amount which we had to pay for Poor Law purposes in the borough of East Ham was £85,000. In 1921 that sum had increased to £134,000; in 1922 to 0228,000, and in 1923 to £263,000. All these increases, I may add, took place when we had a Conservative administration on our board of guardians. In 1924 the amount had increased to £264,000; in 1925 to £268,000, and in
1926 to £280,000. For the year 1927, even though our board of guardians has been superseded, and nominees of the Ministry have been made responsible for the administration, the charge that our local rates will have to bear will be approximately the same as in 1926. One can understand representatives of the Press while serving the policy of certain interests, carrying on a campaign of derision and sneers against boards of guardians of this sort. But one would expect Members of Parliament to look at this problem from the standpoint of national life, and the stability of
local government, and to give more serious consideration to facts and figures of this description.
Our problem is, perhaps, best illustrated by the next comparison which I propose to give. The amount of rates collected per head in the Borough of East Ham is £4 17s., and yet our assessable rate per head is only £4 16s., so that we are actually getting from our people lls. per head more than they are entitled to 'Pear. I turn to another aspect of this problem. Hon. Members have argued that these difficulties have developed in the course of the coal dispute. Industrial disputes arise when workers like the miners are fighting for a reasonable standard of living, and if hon. Members wish to avoid industrial disputes, there is an easy way of doing so. They have only to pay reasonable wages to the people who perform tasks in life such as the miners? task. No one can argue that the getting of coal is of less importance to this country than other services.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy): The hon. Member is now going outside the Estimate.

Mr. BARNES: It is not my intention to do so, but as statements have been made laying the blame for this expenditure on the miners I do not think we should be prevented from stating our side of the case. There has been little in the speeches made from the Government side except attempts to lay the whole burden of blame on the coal stoppage. The Press of this country, Members of this House, and the Minister himself, 1 think, have referred to the fact that 141,000,000 working days have been lost by the coal stoppage, and have said that this loss has meant a burden on the local authorities which necessitates this Supplementary Vote. It is suggested that this stoppage has involved the payment of £3,000,000 in the form of grants. No consideration is ever paid by the Minister or hon. Members opposite, or their Press, to the other causes for the development of this problem. This £3,000,000 in itself does not represent the problem of the local authorities. That problem has been developed during six years of heavy financial obligations which have had to be met half-year after half-year.
For something like six years we have had over 1,000,000 unemployed. Why is
not the attention of the people directed to the waste involved in that circumstance? If hon. Members are anxious for the miners to work, why are they not equally anxious to secure work for this other multitude of people who are out of employment and who are only too anxious to work 1 If you have 1,000,000 persons unemployed for five days a week during 52 weeks, it represents a loss of 260,000,000 working days in a year, whereas the coal stoppage has only been responsible for a. loss of 141,000,000 working days. But this unemployment of 1,00,000 persons has been continued for six years and the total loss of working days, taking a minimum figure of 1,000,000 unemployed, is 1,560,000,000 working days. Why cannot the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford use his eloquence in directing attention to matters of that sort? The hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam), and others, complained that the burden of our remarks was to the effect that the problem of government ought to be to make people happy and comfortable, and said that this was merely a sentimental expression of opinion not Sounded on an understanding of the facts of life. I retort by asking what is the problem of government if it is not to produce a satisfied community?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must again ask the hon. Member to keep to the question which is before the House. The problem of government is a very big question to debate.

Mr. BARNES: I submit that this Vote arises from the burden to be placed on local authorities in the form of loans. We are considering the problem of necessitous areas, and my argument is that the reason why these particular boards have had to apply for loans is because they have experienced six years of unemployment. I suggest that had it not been for the six years of unemployment no board would have applied for these loans, and I submit that argument is germane to the subject under discussion. Therefore I propose to emphasise the point that the loss of working time which this period of unemployment represents is the real problem of necessitous areas. Yet the State -by its unemployment insurance, its Grants-in-Aid and its Poor Law reform proposals, is merely continuing the problem instead
of endeavouring to settle it. Speakers on the other side have admitted that this a burden which must be shared, but I am not satisfied merely with the policy of sharing the burden. That is equitable from the standpoint of necessitous areas. but I wish to direct the attention of the House to the importance of solving the problem of unemployment.
The sooner the Government and the country begin to capitalise the expenditure that we are making year after year in this connection, so as to promote useful schemes of work and create assets for our expenditure, the better it will be for all. The policy of the Ministry, as it is working out in West Ham and Chester-le-Street, is, first, to develop a system of loans which places the local board of guardians in pawn to Whitehall; then, when the local authority is helpless in their financial grasp, the Government use that weapon to undermine two fundamental things in the Constitution of the country. First, they abolish the right of the people in a particular area to elect their local authority, and, having abolished the right of the franchise, they proceed to impose rates, which means imposing taxation. That is the situation which is developing under Tory policy. Yet, with all they have done in places like West Ham, the Government cannot point to any saving in actual rates. They are saving on the loans. They are preventing the piling up of loans because they are becoming afraid of their interest, and doubtful as to whether or not it will be ultimately repaid. They are making this saving by what I describe deliberately as the semi-starvation of hundreds of families in poor areas. They first produce the victims; and then they have not the decency to maintain their own victims.

Mr. MARDY JONES: I take this opportunity of emphasising the point which was made the other day regarding the duration of loans to boards of guardians. It is very important in the interests of all concerned in the coal industry that the loan period should be as long as possible, because the short loan period has been very unsatisfactory. I would remind the House of some of the consequences of these short period loans in face of the present abnormal situation in the coal industry. The burden of rates in most mining areas was very heavy before the stoppage, and owing to the loss of output
in the last, 10 months there will be no rate revenue to speak of from the collieries for some time to come. That means a loss of at least one-third of the revenue in mining districts, and that loss will have to be made up by an increase of from 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. in the rating burden of all the other ratepayers. That will be a serious burden to the collieries in the cost of production, to the miners in their wages—because cost of production is a vital factor in wage ascertainment—and to the tradespeople who will suffer materially. We hope the Government will revise their policy with regard to the duration of these loans. They ought to make the terms at least five years, so that we may tide over what is probably the most difficult period the industry has ever faced. In addition to a longer period, the repayment should be made on a sliding scale, so that during the first two or three half-years the repayment may he as low as possible, gradually increasing until the whole amount is repaid within the allotted period.
That will have a very great advantage so far as the industry and all its interests are concerned, but I want to bring before the House, not so much the financial aspect, as the effect on the health of school children of their being fed in school under the education authorities. I have taken some interest in this matter, and it may interest the House to have my personal impressions of a personal visit which I paid to one of the schools in my own division two months ago. I went to a typical mining school in the heart of my division, which is in the heart of the South Wales coalfield, and there were 600 children present—infants, boys and girls—and I spent three hours in that school, going round with the headmaster and with each of the teachers of the respective classes, examining every child as far as one could in that period, and seeing the children for myself. I saw the children being fed during the meal-time, and I am pleased to say that in the town of Pontyprid the children are being fed three meals per day, Saturdays and Sundays included, and the general appearance of the children was quite satisfactory. They appeared fairly healthy, at least as healthy as one would normally expect such children, living in such a district, to be, and it was the opinion of all the
teachers, the headmaster and all his staff, men and women, that on the whole a certain type of child was in a better state of health now than previous to the stoppage. I also discovered—and this school is typical of the rest of the coalfield, generally speaking—that about 50 per cent. of the children were being so fed and about 50 per cent, were still being fed at home by their parents.
I think the explanation of the condition of the children can be put down to this, that in the nature of things the type of child needing to be fed in school because of the poverty of its parents would come, as one would expect, in the main from the overcrowded homes, where there are very few facilities for proper cooking, with cramped room, and without air and everything else necessary to health. In this particular district the shortage of houses is very acute, so that there is abnormal overcrowding of two, three, and even four families in one small cottage, which was never intended for more than one family. These children were being fed regularly, at a fixed hour each day, seven days per week, not in the cramped atmosphere of overcrowded homes where there are many men, women, and other children to disturb them, but under the supervision of the teachers, where they were disciplined and regularity was observed. Although the food is not as good as the children get generally when at home during times of work, the fact that it was of a good standard and clean, well prepared and properly cooked, had that result on the health of the children. That, I think, explains the reports which the Minister has had, because this is typical, I think, of most parts of the country, and it explains why the health of children has been better than one would expect because of this experience. Having been satisfied with the feeding of the children, I want to pay this tribute to the teachers. The teaching profession in all the mining districts has clone simply splendidly in this matter in organising the work for the feeding of the children.
Now I come to something which distressed me very much. I paid some attention next to the clothing and the hoots of these same children, and here I had a. shock. I had expected to find some bad cases, but I had never realised
that it was so general as I discovered it to be. I found that in that one school there were 14 boys absent that afternoon solely because they had no boots with which to come to school, and for a child in the South Wales coalfield, at any rate, to be without boots is a thing almost unheard of. There were 20 boys in that school that day who had no boots at all, but had come in spite of the lack of boots, which is also a new experience for children in a mining district. We have practically the same percentage of children here in need of boots as have been in need of being fed in school. Roughly speaking, 50 per cent. have to be fed in school on account of the destitution of their parents, and about 50 per cent., roughly, but not necessarily in all cases the same children, are also badly off for boots.
Their hoots were really shocking. Most of them had old boots, which had been cast off by their parents or by neighbours, patched up anyhow, and a large number of the children had not what we call boots at all, but what are locally known as claps, little canvas shoes with rubber bottoms, which were very largely in use because they were so cheap. They could be bought for 1s., and the very prevalence of these daps proved that the parents were very hard up indeed to have, to pay is. a pair on daps instead of spending money on boots to enable their children to go to school at all. These daps might be all right in summer weather, while they lasted, but they would be worn out in a few weeks at- roost, and I want to point out that T was so shocked with this situation that I thought, as we were going to the Ministry to appeal for grants, I would take the opportunity of taking two photographs of some of the worst cases in that school, and I should like to hand those photographs to the Minister, so that he can see for himself the actual condition of the children. These photographs were taken on the 15th September last, that is to say, two months ago, and if the condition of the children was such two months ago, what roust it be now? That was the 15th September, towards the end of the summer period, but we are now in the thick of the autumn and winter period, and the condition to-day is obviously very much worse.
As a result of our representations to the Ministry, they were good enough to make a grant of £200 a month to the Pontypridd Board of Guardians to provide the raw material, leather, so that voluntary associations in the district could repair the boots as best they could and use the £200 to the best advantage The reason given by the Ministry for it magnanimity in giving them this £200 month for this particular purpose was that Pontypridd had been so obedient to the policy of the Ministry in keeping down the scale of relief and had not even kept up to the Circular 703 limit of 12s. an 4s., but had kept it down to 10s. and 2s and on the margin of saving that the had made in this way they were to be granted this £200 per month. There are at least 75,000 children in the area of this one union, and it is safe to say that a this moment anything from a third to half of the school children are in serious need of boots. If we take this grant of £200 a month and assume that they Can repair boots at a cost of an average of is. a pair, it means that the grant will benefit the repairing of boots for 4,00 children per month out of at least 30,00 who are in serious need of boots. Many of the boots are beyond repair, and there ought to be new boots granted in the most deserving and obvious cases.
I bring this to the attention of the Minister, in the hope that he will be much more liberal, when our next request come in that way, than to give us a mere £20, a month for this purpose. I understand that the Board of Education have no authority to make grants for boots or clothing. The boards of guardians have authority, and the Ministry's policy up to now—I speak subject to correction—is that if the board of guardians can save in the actual relief they give on the poor relief scale, they can use that saving in that direction, but what saving can any board of guardians make on 10s. a week to a woman and 2s. a week to a child. who are destitute in this way? I hope the Minister will personally realise that whether this stoppage is going to end shortly, or whether it is going to drag on, there will be serious destitution, even with an early settlement, in the coalfields of this country for months to come. We are going through the hard rigours of winter, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be amenable to the appeal to make grants as such, irrespective of the
existing poor relief scale, for boots and even for clothing in the worst cases that are brought to his notice.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think perhaps at this stage of the Debate it would be onvenient if I were to rise and reply to he very limited number of new points that have been brought out in the case of the somewhat ragged Debate that we have had this afternoon. First, I would like to say a word or two about the subject of necessitous areas in general and on further explanation of what I said the other night about the Government's policy. I am not at all sure that hon. Members who questioned me about what I said then have done me the honour to read what I said on a previous occasion on this House, so long ago as May last, because. if they had, they would see that what I alluded to the other night was no new policy but merely a re-statement of an expression of the views which I have myself for some time past held as to the direction in which we should seek for a permanent solution of this very difficult problem. The question of block grants has not arrived yet at that point when it can be presented to this House, but want it to be clearly understood that in what I said I was not thinking of block grants to be given to necessitous areas, irrespective of any other grants; was thinking of a substitution of the system of block grants for the present system of grants which depend upon a percentage basis.
I understand, from what you, Mr. speaker, said as a ruling, that the only subject relevant to this Debate is the amount of the Vote for which we are asking and any conditions that may have been imposed by the Minister of Health upon local authorities who have applied to him for a loan. I certainly thought that some of the observations of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Greenwood) hardly could be said to come within that limitation, but while I understand that hon. Members opposite use words rather to illustrate than to express their thoughts, that they believe in the policy of the broad brush, and that they are more concerned to paint a vivid picture than to concern themselves with accuracy, I must say that I thought the hon. Member, when he said that I had treated women and children, if not as belonging to the
criminal class, at least as verging tip-On that class, was going rather beyond even the legitimate limits of caricature. 1 venture to suggest to him that the strength of a case does not depend on the strength of the language with which you present it, and if he would pay more attention to the evidence and less attention to the finding of words which clearly are not in consonance with his own natural characteristics, he will carry more conviction in this House.
6.0 P.M
In the speeches of various Members in this Debate, there has occurred over and over again one idea which is indicative of their attitude of mind towards this whole question. They have, if not in so many words, in substance, at least, accused me of deliberately having brought about a state of affairs in which guardians have to come to me for a loan in order that, in giving them that loan, I might exercise dictatorial powers. Really, that is a travesty of the actual facts. Can any hon. Member opposite seriously suggest that I have sought for or desired this necessity for lending money to boards of guardians? Can they suggest any other way the work of the guardians can be carried on if those guardians, in order to meet the demands upon them, have exhausted all the resources available to them, first from the rates, and afterwards from such assistance as they are able to get through the usual channels? What other course is there for the guardians but to come to the Ministry, and what other course is open to the Ministry of Health than to grant them money by way of loan when they are in that necessitous condition?
If one were really to take seriously the speech of the hon. Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes), one would suppose that the duty of the Minister was to lend to the boards of guardians any sums of money for which they come and ask, without imposing any condition of any kind whatsoever upon them. How could any reasonable Minister take a course of that kind? He is responsible for the money of the taxpayers, and surely must satisfy himself that the money is going to be expended in a reasonably economic manner, and if, by comparison with what is being done by other boards of guardians, he has reason to suppose that the policy of the particular board which makes an application
to him has been in any way responsible for the condition in which it finds itself, he must require it to exercise that care and economy in expenditure which has been exercised by other boards of guardians. So that it is not at all true to say that boards of guardians would in any case have been in the condition in which they find themselves to-day whether there had been a coal stoppage or not.
My hon. Friend quoted figures, I think in his speech the other night, which showed how enormously the borrowing of the guardians had increased since the 1st May, namely, by over £7,000,000. Of course they were borrowing before, but those figures were very largely, in fact, I think I may say, mostly what one might call normal borrowings by boards of guardians who borrow money pending the collection of the rates. It is a regular, normal procedure to borrow a certain amount of money for carrying on the expenditure of the guardians before the rates can be collected. There were only, I think, quite a small number of guardians, and those in rather notorious localities which had to come to me for loans. Therefore, I think one can say quite directly, as I do say, that had it not been for the coal stoppage, it would not have been necessary for us to ask the House for this Vote.
The prospects before local authorities are certainly very alarming. They have these great sums for which they are indebted, and I am afraid the ratepayers in the several localities must anticipate that the burdens upon them are going to he heavy for some time to come. That is the price which the ratepayers will have to pay for the stoppage which has paralysed our industries. [An HON. MEMBER: "The miners are ratepayers; they will take their responsibility ! "] The miners, too, certainly. They do not think about that always at the time. I am afraid they, too, will feel part of the burden, which means not merely an increase of rates, but what follows from that—an increase of unemployment, because an increase of rates handicaps the industries of the neighbourhood, and that, again, increases unemployment.
I have been asked a question by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. Mardy Jones), to whom, by the way, I
am indebted for giving me an account of his own experience as to the feeding of children, the more so, as it entirely confirms what I said the other night that children were, as a matter of fact, in many cases better fed than when their fathers were in work, and I commend hon. Members, who were so indignant with that statement, to consult the hon. Member for Pontypridd and accept the personal observation which he has made. The hon. Member asked me a question about the length of time during which these loans would be allowed to run before repayment. I think the House will see that that is a question which has- got to be very carefully considered by the Ministry of Health, but I do not think the time has come when the Ministry could wisely take a decision upon it. What we have said is, that we will review all the circumstances of the case so as to come to a decision, and inform the local authorities of our decision at the end of the financial year. I think it is clear that the stoppage itself has not yet come to an end, that we do not know when work is resumed what the rate of resumption will be, and that we do not know what difficulties the overseers may have in collecting the rates. Seeing that there are so many unknown factors in the case, it would be unwise for us now to lay down a limit of time, and it would be far more convenient for the. local authorities themselves if we wait until we know all the circumstances, as far as they can be known, and then, perhaps, we shall be able to temper the wind to the shorn lamb.

Mr. LANSBURY: I should like, first, to say that the right hon. Gentleman has, I think, quite rightly, as, no doubt, anyone would have done in his place, taken the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. Mardy Jones) as justification for the statement he made the other night. But I think both my hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman will agree that where the condition of the children has been good during this dispute, it is due entirely to the fact that Labour majorities rule those local authorities. I do not think even the right hon. Gentleman, with all his hardihood, will deny that many local authorities are not carrying out the provisions of school-feeding to the extent
that they are being carried out in Ponty-pridd. I would like the Minister of Education, who shakes his head, to tell me if he knows how many education authorities are feeding school children seven days a week, because I am quite certain that only in very exceptional cases is that being done. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman can get very poor comfort from the statement of my hon. Friend.
I want, also, to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that, either intentionally or unintentionally, he always misrepresents and distorts the arguments of those who speak on this side of the House. He took the statement of the hon. Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes) as though my hon. Friend had charged him with being responsible for the unemployment which causes boards of guardians to want loans. He did nothing of the kind, and the right hon. Gentleman knows he did nothing of the kind. My hon. Friend said, and tried to make the House understand, that it was the neglect of Parliament, and the neglect of the Government, which had left untouched this problem, which is not a new one in West Ham, and not at all dependant on the coal stoppage. There have been Royal Commission after Royal Commission, and committee after committee, to deal with the question of casual labour as it affects the waterside district, and the right hon. Gentleman, like every other Minister, and the members of every proceding Government, must take the responsibility for not having dealt with that question long ago. It is because of the failure of Governments to deal with that question that local bodies like the West Ham Guardians and the West Ham Town Council find themselves in the position they are in to-day.
The right hon. Gentleman said also that certain areas had to come to him far loans. He seems to forget that his own boards of guardians in Birmingham have had to come to him for loans. He knows perfectly well that he would not have dared to lay down any conditions to his city fathers as to how they should administer relief, or not administer relief. I know perfectly well you did not do anything of the kind. I am afraid that I am committing my usual error of talking to the right hon. Gentleman instead of
to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that he laid down no conditions, and our complaint against the right hon. Gentleman, from which he rides off every time, is that because of conditions prevailing, which we do not charge him with having created, but which arise out of conditions the guardians do not create and for which they are not responsible, is that he takes advantages of those conditions to interfere with the discretion of the boards of guardians in administering relief.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest, then, that I should give loans to boards of guardians without any conditions?

Mr. LANSBURY: If the right hon. Gentleman had waited a little time, he would have heard what I was going to say. On every occasion the right hon. Gentleman puts what he thinks is a poser to us—Would you give them anything they ask for? I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what I would do if I sat on that side, and was a member of a Government. I would never sit in a Government and impose this burden upon local authorities, and leave them, as it were, to stew in their own juice, as the present Government are leaving them to do.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Will the hon. Gentleman give me an answer to my question?

Mr. LANSBURY: I will give an answer—do not be impatient. The right Gentleman knows perfectly well that it is no answer to West Ham, to Poplar, to Sheffield or to Chester-le-Street to say to them, "You have a problem here which cost so much money, and because of that you are to semi-starve the people who are the victims of it." That is what the right hon. Gentleman says in effect, and I say he has no right to carry that policy out. I say it is an inhuman policy, and the responsibility for the health of every widow and child in West Ham whose relief has been cut down by 6d., 1s. or 2s, and the responsibility for the death of many of those old people in this severe weather, will lie at the doors of the Ministry of Health, and nowhere else. The right hon. Gentleman may say to me there are no deaths. He knows from the records of his Depart-
ment—it may be a very amusing thing to the Noble Lord the Minister of Education that old people should die in this sort of weather—that one can find ease after case of aged people dying during this weather from privation and from pneumonia accelerated by privation. He, as well as every Member of this House, knows perfectly well that a shilling knocked off an old person's outdoor relief means a shilling's worth less nourishment.
It is the meanest and most despicable thing for the Government, through the Minister of Health, to be. taking advantage of the poverty in places like West Ham to starve people as he is doing to-night, to starve them literally, men, women and children, not men who are on strike not women who are on strike, and children who are orphans, whose breadwinners are dead, who have no one to rely on but their mothers, and whose mothers have nothing to rely on but the Poor Law. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Would you give the guardians anything they ask?" I say that before he replaced any board of guardians, before he, by a stroke of the pen, shifted the elected representatives and put in his own nominees to carry out this detestable policy, there ought to have been a public inquiry into the conditions of the locality and into the methods by which relief was granted. [Interruption.] No, you have made no investigation worth the paper it is written on. I would have had the public investigation first. [Interruption.] The hon. Member is as impatient as his chief.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The question of the relief given in West Ham does not. arise on the particular question now before the House.

Mr. LANSBURY: But the right hon. Gentleman challenged us to say whether he would be entitled to grant a board of guardians any loans they asked for, and I am answering that challenge. [Interruption.] You are so impatient.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member wishes to ride off on the question of West Ham. I want him to answer this simple, plain question. Would he suggest that the Minister of Health should give loans to any board of guardians that ask for them without any conditions whatsoever?

Mr. LANSBURY: I say that the Minister himself has no right to lay down the scale of relief. That is the first thing. [Interruption.] Let me answer it in my own way. I have not come to make a set speech, so you cannot upset me in the least. The point put to me is as to what. I should do if I were faced with the same situation that the Minister has to face. [Interruption.] Certainly it is. He puts to me what he thinks is a poser—what would I do if a board of guardians should come for a loan? Would I give them the loan without any conditions whatsoever? No, I should not. I have only been putting my answer the other way round, and I am entitled to say now what I wanted to say first. I object to the conditions. I say your conditions are impossible conditions from any Poor Law point of view, and that the right hon. Gentleman is the first Minister who has attempted to lay down a scale of Poor Law relief. The other night he said he had not done anything of the kind. He knows perfectly well that he has. He has said that unless guardians reduce their expenditure he would not grant a loan, and I say that is entirely the wrong way to do it, and that the proper way would have been to have made an investigation, the results of which could have been put before this House, showing how the relief has been administered, what was the condition of trade and of employment, and what were the conditions of poverty, and then he could have made up his mind whether to grant a loan or not. For him to say the only alternative between his policy and ours is that he should just pour out money for the asking is sheer, undiluted nonsense, and he knows it.
We are barred from discussing the causes that have brought about the need for this Estimate, but I think I may be permitted to say, in conclusion, that in our opinion it is the gross mismanagement of affairs connected with the coal industry by His Majesty's Government which has brought us to the state we are in to-day. If His Majesty's Government had been willing to treat the coal-miners in the same spirit as they treated them when they wanted them to fight in France and Flanders, a different situation would have arisen. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Greenwood) told the right hon. Gentleman that he had been treating
women and children worse than criminals. Last night we were told something about stables for heroes. To-night we can say to you that you are treating men who fought in the late War by leaving them to the tender mercies of the workhouse—rather worse than criminals are treated.

Miss LAWRENCE: I wish to take op the remarks made by the Minister of Health in reply to the speech of the hon. Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes). The Minister has been very much misrepresenting our case. It is not argument argument that the Minister of Health is responsible for the unemployment in West Ham and East Ham. The argument we have tried to develop was that the state of unemployment, the neglect of the Government to deal with unemployment, and so forth, have placed in the hands of the Minister of Health powers which Parliament never gave him; and our first point has been that the Minister was, therefore, placed in an altogether exceptional position, unlike that of any other Minister. Then we went on to consider the manner in which the Minister used his powers. Having had many cases in my own district brought to my attention, and having looked into the circumstances of those cases as well as I can, I say that the amount of additional suffering caused in West Ham and East Ham by the policy of the guardians appointed by the Minister is extremely distressing to any persons with human feelings. The Minister has said in the House that he is not responsible for the guardians he has appointed in West Ham. When he supplies the funds out of which relief is made possible, when he supplies the salaries of the persons who administer it, and when he appoints those persons, surely he is what one may call the Elector of West Ham—to give him the title of one of the German princes. When our electors are unanimous in desiring a certain thing we pay some attention to them, and the three guardians of West Ham pay the same sort of attention to their single elector as we pay to our constituents, and the Minister is therefore responsible, directly responsible, for the misery in East and West Ham.
I will give one case. It was not a case of starvation, but something worse than that. There was a man, a costermonger,
who could get no relief. He went on for a long time without applying to the guardians. He went round to. the relieving officer, but he had left the thing to the last minute—he went on a Saturday, and, I understand, could not explain himself properly. He did not get relief, and he went home and turned on the gas. At the inquest the coroner said it was a strange thing when so much money was being given in out-relief that a person should be left in that state. That was one case. I have another case of a costermonger who was only delivered from the same state after strong representations from local people and the signature of a Magistrate. The man came to me and my agent saying he was perfectly destitute and could get no relief. He was certainly extremely hungry when we saw him. He was a man who had lived in the borough for 17 years and had paid his rates during the whole of that time. He was out of employment on account of the re-arrangement of costermongers' stalls and went to the guardians absolutely destitute, but was refused. We took him back again and again, and he is now, on account of local representations, and on account of a local magistrate's representations, geting 10s. a week in kind. He has no money with which to pay his rent. He has large arrears of rent, and we think he is giving food he gets to the landlord as a substitute for rent. There he is, without a penny of cash to pay his rent, and with nothing whatever but 10s. worth of food a week. For many years that man has been a thoroughly respectable citizen, paying his share of the heavy burdens, and never before has he been to the Poor Law.
I have case after case in West Ham where, after the rent is paid, 6s. a head is all the family gets—case after case of families who, after they have paid the rent, have only 6s. to 7s. per head for food, clothing and everything else. I have heard of that in connection with the aged poor and in regard to families. People say that to speak of starvation is an exaggeration, but in those cases it is starvation and nothing else, and in other eases there is long under-feeding and under-warmth. That is the condition of affairs in my constituency. I am not exaggerating. The Members for West Ham, the other Members for East. Ham,
and the Members for Leyton and Walthamstow have all had similar cases. We are not scaremongers. I do not think I am a person who exaggerates. We all may make mistakes, but 1 have never exaggerated intentionally, and I tell the House that the state of the people in my district and in the neighbouring districts is such as to make any human person unhappy. I am quite sure that some of the old people will have their lives shortened by having to live on so small an amount and being able to purchase only so little coal, and these are things for which the Minister of Health is responsible. It is nonsense to tell me that when hoards of guardians depend upon loans, are appointed by the Minister and are paid by the Minister, as is the case in my district, they are not susceptible, to pressure.
There are other things which are very bad and which I believe to be illegal. There, has been a lock-out, a real lock-out, at an important local firm. This big firm has discharged a large number of workmen and those men are now out of employment and destitute. Those men come to the board of guardians for relief and the board insist upon those men signing a document that the employer is entitled to deduct the amount of the loan from his wages. I think that is quite new in Poor Law matters. The law at present is that you can go to a magistrate and obtain an attachment on a man's wages, and that is all right. That is exactly what happens when private people run into debt and you have a remedy in the County Court, but for a hoard of guardians to instruct an employer in this way is as wrong as it would be if any one of us ran into debt and the debtor had the power to make our employer to deduct the loan from the wages paid by him. I believe this practice to be illegal. I am aware that the Minister of Health says that this is not contrary to the Truck Act, but I am advised that it is contrary to that Act which prescribes that you may not deduct anything from wages except for fines and materials and other matters specified in the Act. There is a very strong and competent body of opinion which confirms my view on this point, and I daresay we shall take an early opportunity of testing in the Courts whether the obiter dictum of the Minister is right or not. It is a
new practice and I think it is quite contrary to the law.
Another change has also taken place and we now have the blessing of a 56-hours' week for nurses instead of 48 hours. This is what has taken place in regard to our Central Hospital, where, unlike London, we treat cancer and venereal diseases. [AN HON. MEMBER: "The Minister of Health is not listening!"] I do not care whether the Minister of Health is listening or not because that to me is a matter of perfect indifference. I do not mind if he is not listening to me because I am addressing the House and the public outside, and I know the right hon. Gentleman will do nothing in regard to this matter. Again I say that in our infirmary the nurses have to nurse people with cancer and venereal diseases, and anybody knows what a dreadful business it is for those nurses who have to lift and move people dying from these horrible diseases and how necessary this is if those patients are to have a Mile relief from their pain during their last few days. We have now had the hours of these nurses lengthened to 10 hours per day instead of 48 hours per week, and I think that is a cruel and a very unjust thing to do. This would be bad enough if the cases in the infirmary with which they had to deal were light cases, but for nurses who have to nurse cancer and cases of venereal disease, even a 48-hours' week is much too long. We have brought this matter to the attention of the Minister of Health, but nothing has yet been done to alter it. I know it is quite useless to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman for a modification of the hours of nurses. I believe that in the infirmary to which I have referred, the patients are not getting that alleviation from suffering which they ought to have when they are dying.

HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the hon. Member seriously make a statement of that kind?

Miss LAWRENCE: Yes, I do; and it must be so if you work the nurses more than 48 hours a week, because they cannot nurse such cases.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This is quite a new point which has been raised by the hon. Member for North East Ham. I would like to point out to the House that it is not a question of the length of the
day, but a question as to how many days' holiday in the month the nurses shall get.

Miss LAWRENCE: I have made a speech before on this question, and I have gone into this question of the hours of the nurses with the unions concerted, and I state in this House that it is not only a question of shortening the hours of nurses but also one of employing more nurses. In the case I have been referring to 11 nurses have been dismissed. I have this statement from the unions concerned, and it has not been challenged. If what the Minister says is true, then there is really a mistake on this point. But if the Minister does not know the facts I have just stated I am only too glad to know and I will bring the case out and tell the unions that there has been some misunderstanding and will bring it before the right hon. Gentleman again. It is quite true that the holidays have been cut short, but the nurses and the secretaries have had their hours lengthened, and I assure the House that what I have said on this point is true. I assert that the reduction of relief and the lengthening of the hours of work of the nurses inflict a great hardship on the poor and the sick, and the conditions prevailing in West Ham have been worsened very much under the recent administration, so much so that hon. Members of this House would not believe it unless actual cases were brought forward.

Mr. LAWSON: On the point which has been raised by the last speaker, I want to be quite fair. As far as my own county of Durham is concerned, I think that if, looking after the women and children during this crisis had not been done well, it would have been a reflection upon the councils and the guardians in my constituency. I certainly do say that in those areas, to the credit of our public men and women who have been co-operating in this work, the children could not have been better looked after. I would like to tell the Minister of Health that this is not the case in those areas where he has appointed guardians to act instead of the ordinary Boards, because they have reduced the scale in some instances from 12s. to 8s. and they have reduced the scale of 4s. allowed for a child to 2s. That is what is actually taking place. In the districts to which I am alluding, if it had not been for the generosity of other
people and in most cases the generosity of the working-classes of this country, there are many children who would have gone not only without clothes and boots but without food. Even when all this has been done, it is most lamentable and sad to see children on these wet wintry days going along the streets with little more than brown paper tied round their feet, with scarcely anything on that can be called boots. I would like hon. Members to see the delight of a child when it gets a pair of ordinary decent boots to keep out the wet.
Even in those areas where there is a Labour majority, if there be not absolute starvation there is very great misery and suffering among the children, to say nothing of the sufferings of the women and men. I wish we could be supplied with the figures of infantile mortality, because I am certain from what I know that the right hon. Gentleman would he appalled by them. I have had myself some startling facts placed before me from people who are doing welfare work in my own district, and, if that be the condition of affairs in my district, what must it be in some of the other districts which are far worse. I can tell hon. Members of this House that if the Midland miners have gone back to work in large numbers, it is not because they are satisfied with the hours and wages which have been offered to them, and they did not want to go back while their comrades remained locked out. The Midland miners went hack to work simply on account of want and starvation amongst their families. I have seen cases where the parents were only able to feed the children once every other day in the week or once every 48 hours, and even then they were not sure that the money would be forthcoming to enable them to do that. If anybody says that that is not starvation then I do not know what starvation means. The Minister of Health must not take credit for what is being done in a few areas by the Education Committees. I asked the right hon. Gentleman the other night what he was going to do in the case of his own appointed guardians. In my own division they have reduced the allowance from 12s, to 8s. and there has been some talk of reducing it still further. Is the right hon. Gentleman going to stand aside while the guardians continue to act in that way? The Minister says he
has no responsibility in the matter, but I would like to ask if he will tell us to whom these guardians are responsible. Are they responsible to the ratepayers? The right hon. Gentleman has himself admitted that the miners are ratepayers.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam) said not long ago that the miners were simply making the poor shopkeepers keep them. Of course, when it suits the case of the Minister, he admits that the miners are ratepayers. To whom are the appointed guardians responsible? They are the people who are drastically cutting down the amount of relief which the guardians are supposed to give. Who is responsible for seeing that they carry out their duty according to the law? Some of these people have gone to the extent of appealing to the Vagrancy Act, and they have declared vagrants some of the men who have fought for their country. I think I have a right to deal with this side of the question when I remember 300,000 out of 900,000 miners went to the War in 1914 and 1915, and they went from my district at such a rate that the country became short of coal, and some of the miners had to be sent back in order to get coal. When I think of the enthusiasm displayed by those men in order to save the country and contrast it with the fact that they are now fighting for a decent standard of living to hear them being declared vagrants is simply appalling. When these men came back from the War, they were told that the country could never repay them for saving the country.
What is the position to-day? We have gone through seven months' struggle, not because the men wanted better conditions, but because they wanted to save their people from going on to Poor Law relief even when they were working. The right. hon. Gentleman knows that one of his problems before the stoppage was that, in mining area after mining area, men, after they had done their week's work, or as much as they could get, had to go and ask for relief in order to help them out with their wages. The men in my county were getting 6s. 8d. a day, and, even if they got the average of five days a week stated by the owners, that would bring them about 35s. a week on which to keep their families; and when they got
only three or four days' work a week, as they very often did, what else could they do but ask for relief in order to maintain themselves and their children? I say, all honour to the men who have stood out for these 28 weeks—the best paid men standing by the worst paid, the good districts, which stood to lose nothing, standing by districts where the men were suffering, practically a million men standing by the men who had to be pushed back in wages, and were finally compelled to go to the guardians and ask the ratepayers to maintain them and supplement the wages they were getting. I know that the right hon. Gentleman, in his nice way, sometimes skims round this problem, but I should like an answer from him to-night as to what he is going to do about these appointed guardians in Chester-le-Street, and whether he is going to continue—

Mr. SPEAKER: That seems to me to come under the Act passed earlier in the year. I do not see how it comes under the present Bill.

Mr. LAWSON: I wanted to ask if the right hon. Gentleman is going to deal with these people who reduce the amount of relief from the standard which he himself set, namely, 12s. for women and 4s. for children, to 8s. and 2s., respectively. If they are not responsible to the people in the area, they must be responsible to the Minister, and he must have some influence which would enable him to deal with a matter of this kind, especially when we have had the threat that there was, perhaps, going to be another reduction. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to use what influence he can over these people. When he talks about the situation being created by the mining dispute, I would ask him to remember, at any rate, that it is to the eternal credit of the great mass of the workers that they have made this effort in order to protect their people and prevent them from having to seek relief in years to come.

Mr. W. M. ADAMSON: I want to put one point of view to the Minister of Health with regard to the action of a particular board of guardians in the Midlands, who, since the inception of this dispute in the mining industry, have definitely laid it down, with or without the right hon. Gentleman's authority, that they can only grant relief on loan,
and that every recipient of relief, on behalf of his dependants, must first of all sign a guarantee that it can be deducted from future wages. This point has been raised from other districts as well. If the Minister has seen fit, in his wisdom, to supersede the representatives of certain areas on the ground that they have exceeded their duty, is it not just as reasonable that guardians who fail to give legitimate relief should also be replaced, and that the right hon. Gentleman should take into his hands the power to see that relief is given to destitute people without its becoming a loan and without its having to be repaid? This is not the first occasion on which this practice has been in operation. Following the 1921 dispute, guardians, even up to 1924 and 1925, were putting scores of men into the Courts because they had not repaid these debts which they had contracted at that time. Surely, it is not the statutory obligation of guardians, the representatives of the ratepayers, to deny relief in cases of destitution, except on the condition that it should be repaid. The men who have been forced back to work through starvation in the Midlands are having deductions made from their wages to-day to repay a portion of the relief that they have received, and they will be asked to continue to pay their poor rate—for what specific purpose? If they have to repay whatever relief they have gained during this period, I would advise that they pay no poor rate whatever, and I believe they would be justified in taking that action. These men were entitled to claim for their dependants, if not for themselves, that they should have something, and in the Midlands these Conservative boards of guardians have been failing to carry out their legitimate duty, while, on the other hand, many education authorities have also failed to carry out their duty in this direction. I only wish that we, like Durham and some other counties, had been able to establish for ourselves the power to see to the feeding of the children. It would have saved the necessity for the repayment of anything borrowed from the guardians, and it would not have been necessary, as, I believe, has been the case with the Cannock Guardians, that the Minister of Health should be asked to give them an extra amount so that they might pay it out for repayment in future.

Orders of the Day — BROADCASTING.

Colonel DAY: I should like, at this stage of the Bill, to raise a few points with regard to the broadcasting system which have not yet been raised in this House. Many of the matters to which I desire to call the attention of the Noble Lord the Assistant Postmaster-General are new; I did not hear them raised in the course of the Debate the other evening. Others I wish further to emphasise, so that, perhaps, some attention may be given to my observations. In the first place, I wonder whether the Noble Lord or the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster-General has taken note of the very many portable wireless sets that are in use in this country, and whether licences have been paid for on them. I myself know of one instance where a gentleman has a four-valve set and also a portable wireless set, which he takes round the country with him. I asked him the other day if he had taken out a licence for his portable wireless set, which he takes round in his motor car, and takes up the river on Sundays in the summer, and he told me that, as he had one wireless licence, it, was not necessary for him to take out two. I want to point out to the Noble Lord that if a man is in a position—[A laugh.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Berwick (Mrs. Philipson) has two?

Mrs. PHILIPSON: I was wondering whether it was your own.

Colonel DAY: As the hon. Lady has made that observation, perhaps, for the information of the House, I might inform them that I have four wireless licences.

Mrs. PHILIPSON: Have you any portable sets?

Colonel DAY: One portable, and three others, and I have paid my licence fees. I want to draw the Noble Lord's attention to the possibility that, as there is this instance of which I know, there may be many others, and it may be a great source of revenue to the Post Office. I wonder whether it would not be possible to arrange that the manufacturers, in supplying these sets, should give some notice to the revenue authorities. I would even go so far as to make a bolder suggestion, and say that, while they are supplying these sets, a form should be
filled up and sent to the revenue authorities, or even that they should collect the revenue. It may sound somewhat exaggerated to ask the Post Office to do that, but, in the entertainment and amusement world, theatrical and variety theatre proprietors have to collect the Entertainments Duty for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, if it can be done in one business, it can just as well be arranged in another. The Postmaster-General, on the 14th July, said that, of the sum of 10s. paid for the licence, the 2s. 6d. that was retained for the Post Office was used in the payment of expenses and also for the detection of defaulters who had not taken out licences. The number of people who have been prosecuted was given in this House on the 13th July as 300. I wonder whether the Postmaster-General, after further investigations, has brought any further prosecutions. It seems to me, from observations and inquiries I have made, that there are many people in this country who have not taken out broadcasting licences, and yet have all the advantages of the broadcasting system.
I raised the other night the question of the very niggardly and really offensive fees offered to genuine artists for broadcasting. Since then I have been able to get some particulars, and I find that on one occasion 12 artists, most of them star performers, were paid the huge sum of £21 by the Broadcasting Company for an hour's broadcast. That is a disgusting fee, especially in view of the fact that these people had to go to the station on another evening and give an hour's rehearsal to see whether their entertainment was all right before it was broadcast. I would ask the Noble Lord how he can expect to get a first-class entertainment, with first-class artists, when artists are offered fees of that kind, to include their expenses in getting to and from the broadcasting studio. I want to mention to the Noble Lord another instance, in which one of England's premier bands was allowed to go to the studio, take all its instruments, and broadcast, and receive no fee at all for it. When you are expecting to give a first-class entertainment, you cannot expect to get artists with reputations to go and give their wares to the public on the contention that it is an advertisement
for them to do so. I am sure the Noble Lord or the Postmaster-General would not expect to go into a piano shop and say to the tradesman, "Let me have that piano; it will be an advertisement if I take it to my house and play on it, and I am not going to pay you for it."
7.0 P.M.
They do not realise that the artistes who are asked to give to the public their stock-in-trade, which is their performance, expect payment for it. I mentioned the other evening that it seemed a, pity to me that the Governors of this Corporation had an entire lack of knowledge of the entertainment industry or the entertainment world. Ninety-five per cent, at least of the people who take our wireless licences or buy sets do so because they want entertainment. Entertainment providing is a showman's job. To provide that entertainment the Governors of the Corporation should at least include somebody who is an expert in providing entertainment for the public. I am going to repeat the suggestion I made to the House some time ago, and which has met with a great deal of success in America. Looking round this House I think it would do our Members a lot of good if they took up radio-physical drill in the morning. It has met with such great success in America that if it were tried here it would greatly improve the health of the nation. I am sure hon. Members cannot say that we are at the present time an A 1 nation in health. If there be any opportunity we can take to improve our health we should take it, if it can be done in such an easy way as over the wireless.
I want to suggest to the Postmaster-General that some of the talks we get over the wireless—I heard one the other evening myself—are more or less squeaks. It was almost impossible to understand what the person giving the lecture was saying. I understand that all lectures that come over the wireless have to be written out first for the approval of the Postmaster-General or the Censor of the Broadcasting Company. I want to suggest to him that the names of those persons could just as well be used over the wireless, and their lectures could be sent through to listeners by somebody experienced in the art of announcing who can articulate properly. That would greatly increase interest in the so-called lectures that one hears over the wireless.
It would save many of us, myself included. I am one of those who, when those conversations take place, are only too glad to switch off.
I want also to bring before the Noble Lord the broadcasting of big theatrical successes in the West End of London. I know for a fact, of my own personal knowledge, that, on occasions, big West End shows are asked whether they will allow their shows to be broadcast for a fee that is negligible. You cannot expect producers of theatrical entertainments, who have spent thousands in giving recognised successes, to allow them to be broadcast to two or three million listeners without receiving any substantial payment. As we are entitled to the best as listeners, I suggest that it may be within the province of the new Corporation to make suitable arrangements so that we can get the benefit of the best entertainments in the West End.
I would like to urge upon the Postmaster-General the fact that crystal-set users are certainly entitled to a reduction of their licences as compared with people who have super-sets of four and five valves. People with big, powerful sets can get any portion of the Continent they require, and can receive news or entertainment from any part of England, and they have the opportunity of hearing that for 10s.; whereas the crystal-set user has to pay the same amount. I noticed, while I was in Southwark at the last election canvassing, that the people in the majority of houses I went to had small crystal sets with aerials fitted up to the bedposts. It is an absolute injustice that these people should have to pay the same amount for licences as people with four, five or six valve sets, who can get any station on the Continent. I sincerely trust that the Postmaster-General will give that his very serious consideration, and be able to make some modification in the fees paid by poor people with crystal sets.

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Viscount Wolmer): The hon. Member for Central Southwark (Colonel Day) has raised a variety of points in his very interesting discourse on broadcasting. I am afraid a great deal of what he said does not concern the Post Office at all. It does not concern the Post Office under the present system or under the system to come into force on 1st
January. What the British Broadcasting Company is able to pay its artistes is nut a matter within the control of the Postmaster-General. It is a matter which the company has to arrange with the artistes or the theatre managers in question. The Postmaster-General has no grounds on which he can interfere in that matter at all. The same state of affairs will prevail in January. The Corporation will be free to pay whatever it can afford to the various artistes whose services it desires to obtain. If the hon. Member for Central Southwark desires to make a representation in that direction, then it must be made to the company or to the Corporation when it is established. I am quite certain the course he has now taken of making his remarks in this House will mean that they will reach the ears of the authorities responsible, and I am quite sure they will receive attention. The hon. Member raised one or two questions which come within the sphere of the Postmaster-General. He asked what steps we were taking to see that people were paying their licences. T am very glad to hear that he has taken out four licences, and I hope the example he has set will be followed by all his friends. He hinted that he knew a gentleman who has not taken out a licence bat who should have taken one out.

Colonel DAY: He does not belong to the Labour party.

Viscount WOLMER: If the hon. Member for Central Southwark will furnish me with his name and address, I will see that the matter is carefully inquired into without further delay.

Mr. W. M. ADAMSON: What reward would he be entitled to?

Viscount WOLMER: He would be entitled to the reward of knowing that he had done his duty.

Colonel WOODCOCK: And having given away his friend.

Viscount WOLMER: The hon. Member for Central Southwark and other hon. Members and every patriotic citizen should inform the authorities when they know of cases in which licences are not being paid. I am certain the hon. Member will recognise his obligation in that direction. I can assure him the Post
Office is taking very elaborate measures to see that licences are paid. I am not going to state what those methods are, for obvious reasons. He can rest assured that we have a number of experienced and able officials who devote their whole time to this matter, and whose activities have resulted in a very marked increase in the number of licences takes out.

Colonel DAY: Can the Noble Lord say how portable sets are detected?

Viscount WOLMER: I am not going to tell the hon. Member how they are detected, but they are detected. He asked how many prosecutions had been undertaken. Last summer he was told there had been some 300 successful prosecutions. Up-to-date the number is about 430. Very often the licence is taken out just before a prosecution, and that by no means represents the number of cases which we have gone into. There are further prosecutions pending, and the work will be conducted with the utmost vigour. The hon. Member suggests that owners of valve sets should pay a higher licence than owners of crystal sets. I do not know whether he means that the 10s. licence should be reduced in the case of crystal set owners, or that the licence should be increased in the case of valve set owners, or whether you should have a licence based on the number of valves in your instrument—a sort of horse power or valve power tax. I agree that is a very attractive idea, but it does not come within the scope of this Bill. Of course, it would mean a far more elaborate method of collection and would be attended by a great deal of friction. There are severe administrative difficulties. The matter was very carefully considered when broadcasting was first introduced, and for the sake of simplicity, though I quite agree it is hard to defend in theory, an all round licence was adopted. I do not think we could depart from that without very careful consideration of the matter. I do not think the other points the hon. Member raised really come within the scope of the Postmaster-General at all. They are all matters for the consideration of the British Broadcasting Company and of the new Corporation, but although he may not like all the lectures and may think some of the lecturer's voices are squeaky, I am sure
he will admit, that he gets money's worth even for his four licences. When one considers the amount of really good stuff that the ordinary man gets for 10s., and the hon. Member gets for £2, I think we must all admit that this service is extraordinarily cheap. Of course, it is susceptible of improvement, and the more licences that are taken out the greater will be the revenue of the Corporation, and as the Corporation is not allowed to make any profit, the whole of those revenues will go to improvement of the programmes after the Government has taken its share in taxation, and I think we can look forward to the programmes steadily improving. The hon. Member spoke as if America was far ahead of this country in regard to broadcasting. My information is that the programme put forward by the British Broadcasting Company taken as a whole from year's end to year's end is better than that of any other single broadcasting body in the whole world, and although we must agree that the thing can be and will be improved, T do not think anyone can say he does not fair money's worth for the licence he buys.

Mr. HARDIE: I should like to raise a point in connection with the service given by the wireless programme. I feel that this can become a great direct and not an indirect educational service. If you take the magnificent lectures, say, of Sir Oliver Lodge and others, the defect seems to me to be that while you have the best form of lecture, you have a number of people listening who become immediately interested in the subject. Would it not be possible in connection with such lectures to intimate to the listeners a series of books for those desiring to read further on the subject, especially the elementary stages of the subject? I have always felt that when you get a youth who is listening to a lecture and he becomes interested, if he could be told of the books to read or Given the address of the school where evening classes are held, it would prove a valuable connection between the initial stages of interest in the human mind and the continuity and development of the interest itself. I hope if that can be done it will be done in no mean way, and there will not be any break in the system no matter what the lecture is upon. For instance, take the article on
gardening by a lady, one of the very best on the wireless programme as far as I am concerned. I am certain, from her ability as a lecturer, she has in her mind right away the books that ought to be read. If we could get that system adopted it would mean that in a great many districts where the educational authorities complain about not having sufficient numbers to keep up their evening classes, especially on the technical side, there would be a tremendous development. When it comes to the musical side of the programme, when we get some of the best exponents of the piano or violin a word or two could be said at the end as to the pieces that have been played, especially some that are very popular, and the shortest history given of the composer, it would make it of some real tangible value.

Mr. MONTAGUE: The last speaker's remarks suggest to my mind one or two things I should like to put before the noble Lord. There are quite a lot of people who because they have limited brains call everything they do not and never will understand high brow, and there are people who glory in being low brow, or no brow at all, and so we have discussions in the papers as to the quality of the broadcasting entertainments that are given. The suggestion I have to make is that we might recognise the demand for the low brow entertainment, jazz orchestras and the rest of it, and also the demand of those who want the educational lectures and classical music. The Noble Lord has said that because this Socialistic experiment is not allowed to make any profit, any surplus will be re-invested in the industry by providing better entertainment. Would it not be possible to utilise two wave lengths for two broadcasting stations, when you have money enough to do it; one devoted to high brow and the other to low brow entertainments? That would meet the objections that large numbers of people have to the mixed programmes, and it would give more opportunity for those who, like the last speaker, want the educational and the classical rather than the jazz and the common things.

Viscount WOLMER: What the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) suggests is already done in a great many cases, but I will see that his suggestion
is brought to the notice of the authorities. I quite agree with him that in the interests of education it is very desirable and most useful that lectures should be followed up in the direction he suggested. The matter referred to by the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague) has been under very careful consideration for some months, and I think most people will agree that it is the ideal at which one should aim. But there are technical difficulties at present, not only congestion in the ether, which limits tremendously the number of available wave lengths, but also difficulties as to the range of the various stations. These matters are being dealt with, and I think within the next year or two years, something on the lines he suggested will very likely materialise.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House for To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — RELIEF WORKS, MANCHESTER.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. F. C. Thomson.]

Mr. CLYNES: This Motion offers a very wide range of discussion, and within it a number of my hon. Friends wish to refer to the action of the Home Office, and particularly the steps taken by the Home Secretary in connection with the suppression of meetings in different parts of the country. But before I say a word by way of introduction on that subject I want to speak for a few moments as the Member for the Platting division of Manchester, and refer to a question which is very seriously disturbing the minds of the local authorities in that city. I need not refer to Manchester as the greatest industrial centre of a great industrial county. That is well known, but it is a county which for long has been exceptionally affected by continued depression in the cotton trade, and that continued and widening depression has prejudicially affected the prosperity of the county and has tended to intensify the conditions of unemployment which, as a consequence have arisen. Some time ago, as I gather, the Minister of Labour reversed the policy with regard to the
grants to be made to various towns and cities for relief work in order to lessen unemployment, and this was decided upon without consultation with this House or reference to it. It is a reversal which, as far as I know, has received no Parliamentary sanction. Its effect upon schemes which cities like Manchester might undertake is not only prejudicial but extremely serious indeed. Manchester at this moment, as figures show, has a list of some 34,000 unemployed. That number has not been very materially increased as the result of the prolonged coal stoppage, for even before the coal stoppage began there was an enormous list of unemployed, and I can recall the time a year or two ago when it exceeded some 40,000. We must remember, in a case like Manchester and these areas where there has been depression for a long time, that in addition to a state of absolute unemployment the very wide condition of under-employment and short time, ranging over a period of years in the case of the Lancashire cotton industry, is a matter of common knowledge, and that industry may be classed, I think, as the second greatest industry of the country viewed from the standpoint of the number of people employed, the capital invested and the general range of the industries that are affected.
I understand the Minister of Labour has entered upon this new policy upon the ground that in Manchester the percentage of unemployment is only 8 or perhaps below 8, and that he has fixed what is termed an average level of unemployment. Therefore, a place must be at or about the average level if it is to continue to receive any financial assistance, and Manchester being below that average, or what I understad the average to he, it cannot expect any support of the kind previously received. I should be interested to hear the theory or the principle upon which this new law of averages has been decided. I think it is extremely harmful. You cannot properly judge the intensity of the effects of unemployment in a particular area by applying to it some general principle of averages of that kind. Surely, it ought to be enough for the Ministry to know that, according to official records, at this moment there are 34,000 people described as being wholly
unemployed, and probably many more thousands under-employed and suffering conditions of short employment. Surely that condition entitles an active, earnest, willing and enterprising municipal authority to a continuance of the steady support which formerly it has received. Let me close this part of my remarks by reading to the Minister a telegram which I received yesterday from Manchester, which will indicate the state of apprehension of the local authorities in and around that city. The telegram, which was addressed to me by the Town Clerk of Manchester, says:
I am requested by conference of Lancashire and Cheshire local authorities held this afternoon to transmit to you the following resolution:
'That, in the opinion of this conference of Lancashire and Cheshire local authorities, it is imperative that works for the relief of unemployment should continue to be provided by local authorities during the present winter, and that such work can only be undertaken with adequate financial assistance from the Government, and that the Government be urged immediately to restore financial assistance on the terms operating prior to the 15th December, 1925.'
I will only add the fact that I understand quite a number of undertakings have been prepared, plans have been made and preparations generally designed and fixed for undertakings and for continuing such works, and that it will mean that plans that have been arranged and definite settlements that have been fixed will be completely upset unless adequate financial support is afforded to the City, in order that these undertakings can be carried forward and completed. A few words on the other subject which a number of my hon. Friends intend to bring before the notice of the House. I am certain that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will admit, in the absence of his chief, that a condition of peace has been uniformly maintained during this prolonged dispute which may be said to be without precedent in any part of the world. I doubt whether in industrial history there has been a dispute affecting so large a number of people and entering, as it were, more or less into the homes of most of us and giving rise to such questions of deep personal interest and discomfort, where there have been so few instances of breach of the law or of illegalities of one kind or another. In spite of this—

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): It has been suggested to me that the right hon. Gentleman is now entering upon a debate in which a number of his friends wish to take part. I have no wish to do anything other than what the right hon. Gentleman would desire, but if he would like me to reply at once to the point which he has raised in the first part of his speech, so that he can speak again, by leave of the House, after I have replied, I should be perfectly willing to do that. I think the House would be perfectly willing to agree to that course. I make this suggestion because he is raising two distinct subjects, and he might prefer to deal with the second subject without being interrupted by my getting up to reply, and disturbing the thread of debate.

Mr. CLYNES: What I have to say on the second subject will not take long, but perhaps it would be better if my right hon. Friend dealt with the first part of the question which I have raised.

Mr. SPEAKER: I take it that it is the will of the House to agree to that course.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am ready to reply, and quite briefly, to the subject raised by the right hon. Gentleman. He has referred to the policy of the Government with regard to the Unemployment Grants Committee and the giving of grants for unemployment relief. In the course of his remarks my right hon. Friend said that there has been a reversal of policy, without any Parliamentary sanction having been given, and without the matter having been brought before this House so that the House might have an opportunity of expressing its views upon the change in policy, such as it was. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is under a misapprehension on that point. I have in my hand a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT on the date when I brought this proposed change in policy, quite definitely, before the House, and gave the reasons for it. Therefore, my right hon. Friend may, at least, rest assured that as far as this House is concerned it had full notice beforehand of the change which it was proposed to make, and it had a full opportunity of debate.

Mr. TINKER: What is the date?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: 26th November, 1925, and the change was brought into effect after that date. In regard to Manchester, the position is this: It has been treated in the same way as other towns and cities in the country with regard to unemployment. In the modification of policy in regard to unemployment grants we were of the opinion, as I stated on the previous occasion, that to give these sums on a large scale would, under the existing circumstances, which, as far as this point is concerned stills holds, tend rather to increase unemployment in the ultimate result than to diminish it. But we were willing to continue grants under somewhat restricted conditions, namely, that where particular circumstances singled out areas for special sympathetic treatment, then these grants would still be entertained. Of course, from that point of view we had to consider what areas needed special sympathetic treatment. There was no rigid law of averages applied, no rigid set of figures. It was perfectly clear that the past history of any area would be an element in the calculations and would have to be taken into account.
By whatever standard it could be applied, it was quite clear that as far as Manchester was concerned—although I should be the last to minimise the hardship of unemployment in any town where it exists—it could be compared not unfavourably with most of the other areas in the United Kingdom. Consequently, our attitude as regards Manchester has been the same as our attitutde towards other places in the same position, and we were obliged to reply, as I did in my letter to the right hon. Gentleman and other Manchester Members at the end of August, that we were unable to modify our attitude there as regards the general question of unemployment grants. I can only assure my right hon. Friend that Manchester has received in this case no exceptional treatment. It does not come in the category of those towns which deserved from their position peculiar sympathy. Perhaps I may mention to him that with regard to one scheme—I am not sure whether that is the only one—which was already under consideration, that in so far as it was under consideration, I understand there is every possibility in regard to that of a further grant
being given to Manchester. Therefore, I trust my right hon. Friend's apprehensions are not well-founded, and that there will not be such a dislocation of the schemes that have already been taken in hand. I hope I have made the situation clear. I am not to-night giving again an explanation of the whole modification in policy that was made, but I have tried to make it clear to my right hon. Friend how it was that the decision as regards Manchester was reached, and to assure him that in this respect no injustice has been done to Manchester as compared with any other towns in the country.

Orders of the Day — PROHIBITED MEETINGS.

Mr. CLYNES: If I may for a moment continue the point, I would say that I find just a little consolation in the closing remarks of my hon. right Friend as to the possibility of further grants to Manchester. I would like him to keep his mind wide enough open to admit of some further consultation with the Manchester authorities as to what is the position there, if only for the reason that I find a real conflict between the argument in the speech to which we have just listened and the words of the letter to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Here is the letter sent from the Ministry of Labour on the 31st August to myself and other Manchester representatives, explaining why further assistance could not be given to Manchester:
Assistance can only be given where the position of unemployment in the area is appreciably worse than the general average.
I understood my right hon. Friend to argue there has been no hard and fast law of averages laid down. I rather think that hard and fast average is expressed in his letter, and I hope that, on second thoughts, the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to concede some modification of the rather hard terms of that communication.
I will now proceed with the further theme, in regard to which I was saying that the country has been uniformly peaceful and that even in those areas where some 80 or 90 per cent. of the wage-earners must have been enduring the hardships of the lock-out, they have cultivated the sentiments and the spirit of peace and have tried to live down their hardships and enforced idleness by enter-
ing into all manner of innocent and harmless activities and occupations, and have never in any sense shown any disposition to disorder. Notwithstanding that, the Home Secretary thought proper in October of this year, I think it was on the 19th of October, to issue a communication to the various Chief Constables. Yesterday, in this House an answer to a question was given by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who said:
During the period 1st May to 19th October my right hon. Friend issued authorities for the prohibition of meetings or processions on 21 occasions in England and one in Wales."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 17th November, 1926; col. 1847, Vol. 199.]
He went on further to say that from the 19th October to Sunday last there had been 63 such authorities. What conclusions must be drawn from that? I submit that there is no more evidence of the probability of disorder within the period from the 19th October onwards than there was in the period which precedes the 19th October. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman thought that the chief constables of these different centres lacked activity, but I would suggest to him that whatever was the cause of the communication he addressed to the police authorities, such a communication at such a time must have been received by many such authorities as a stimulant to activity, and activity to them meant the suppression of assemblies and meetings. I submit, too, that facts have proved to us that freedom to meet has been generally an insurance for the peaceful condition of assemblies; that where you have had no suppression but liberty to gather together and discuss, there has been no illegalities and no tendency to break the law. On the other hand, the risk of illegality and the fear of the law being broken has been due to this unnecessary suppression of meetings and the right of free speech.
That suppression has gone the length of prohibiting meetings of an ordinary trade union branch character, to which the public are not admitted, meetings for the purpose of transacting routine business, or called together for the purpose of enabling the miners to consider on what terms a state of peace could be reached.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): Lodge meetings?

Mr. CLYNES: Yes, lodge meetings. I am all for appeals and communications to the public for the observance of the law and expressing themselves in terms that will avoid any incitement to breaches of the peace. But I am not at all sure that the right hon. Gentleman himself can claim that he has always avoided provocative language, and considering how very free and ready he has been at innumerable meetings, he might well consider the condition of ill-temper which would arise from this ruthless and needless suppression. The right hon. Gentleman might also remember that as a prominent partisan his public acts cannot always be placed above suspicion, and it is a bad thing that groups of workers, who may be assembling as trade unionists, as Socialists, or as Communists, should be under the suspicion that because of their politics political hostility is being shown by a Conservative Home Secretary, who is using the machinery of his office to suppress a free discussion of their politics.
Finally, I suggest that every recent evidence in regard to this prolonged trouble, every reference to the men as rank and file, has proved how deep is their sense of the wrong they are suffering. This is no place for entering into the merits of the dispute, but it is clear from their consultations and decisions, whether by district meetings or by ballot, that they do feel deeply the sense of injustice under which they have been placed, and that sense of injustice ought not to be aggravated and intensified by a partisan policy of the Home Secretary. I heard to-day, with a feeling of real amazement, a repetition of the arguments adduced by the Minister of Health as to the effect this policy has had in keeping children of the miners alive. The Minister of Health argued that as a result of the organised feeding of children and the other support that has been given, that the miners' children have been better fed during the course of this stoppage than was actually the ease prior to the lock-out. On that I offer only one observation, and that is this, that if it be true it is the most eloquent arid the most penetrating condemnation that could be adduced of the miserably low wages imposed on the miners before the lock-out began. This
fact, if it is a fact, is one which any Minister should be ashamed to bring forward in support of any case he may have to advocate in this House.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: I again wish to draw the attention of the Home Secretary to this fact, that it is not merely our conjecture or our imagination but the actual actions of the chief constables, and the right hon. Gentleman's own admirers, that give positive proof to us that the whole of this policy of banning meetings is used for political aims and objects. I do not wish to enter at length into this matter. I do not ask him to tell us what his intentions are or were, I want him to examine his own conduct in the light of what has occurred. When this question was debated on a previous occasion, the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn) said the Home Secretary had proclaimed himself as a modern hero who had come to dispel Bolshevism in Great Britain, and actually slogans are going around to this effect: "Jix is the lad, when times are bad to keep the Reds at bay." However humorous that may be it is extremely unfortunate that a responsible Minister like the Home Secretary, with almost judicial duties in his hands, should have permitted himself to be so identified or at any rate take no effective measures to contradict it, thus giving rise to the suspicion that he has a lurking desire to be so identified.
8.0 P. M.
We are in a somewhat unfortunate position. The Home Secretary takes the responsibility at certain times, but at others he relegates his powers to chief constables; it is said to be within their absolute discretion, and he disowns responsibility for what the chief constables may do. When we go to the chief constables, or to local authorities, we are told that they are doing it with the sanction and authority of the Home Secretary. The intention is to convey the idea that for a specific purpose they have obtained this authority, but it is discovered that it is an all-pervading authority, and it means this, that the Home Secretary has told the country that he is not necessary and that the chief constables and police officials throughout the country are quite good enough to run his Department. On the previous occasion, about a week ago, when this question was raised by the
hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones), we were answered in the following terms on behalf of the Home Secretary:
At Question Time yesterday I thought I made it clear to the hon. Member when I told him that the responsibility was given to the chief constable in any district to ban meetings if in his opinion to hold them would be likely to create a breach of the peace. When the hon. Member suggests that these meetings are banned in order to suppress certain political thought, he is quite wrong. It is only if the chief constable believes that the meetings would lead to a breach of the peace that he has the authority to stop the meetings."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th November, 1926; col. 1418, Vol. 199.]
Last Tuesday I put a question on the Order Paper, and I must apologise for not being in my place to ask it. But the answer given to my question was this:
If the chief constable considered that meetings arranged by the Communist party were likely to give rise to the conditions contemplated by the Regulations, my right hon. Friend is not disposed to disagree with them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1926: col. 1704, Vol. 199.]
Where do we stand exactly? The duty of the Home Office is to demand explanations for any erratic conduct on the part of chief constables or police officials generally. If I, or any of my Communist colleagues, had had a notorious career in the past, if event after event had happened, and that as a result of my addressing meetings, riots and brawls had taken place, I can understand that it would give a prima facie cause for anyone honestly to suspect that whenever I addressed a meeting, it would end in a brawl. But I have addressed a few thousand meetings throughout the country and there never has been in any instance any occasion for anyone to be turned out, such as is often the case at meetings held by friends of the right hon. Gentleman. Nothing of that sort has ever happened, and it is therefore surely wrong for any chief constable to turn round and say, "I am going to stop this meeting because I fancy so." Then the Home Secretary disowns all responsibility and says it is the action of the chief constable, and if the chief constable so imagines, then he is "not disposed to disagree with him." I think the Home Secretary must take some responsibility for the action of his own friends, his own party, and his party Press. I know how
the Press news is made up, how it is wired through from one town to another. But that is not the point. The point is how public opinion is created. The last time I went to Notts, I addressed a meeting of very little importance in itself. In fact, I was only asked to address it because they expected I should be doing nothing on that particular morning. That meeting was banned. But how was it advertised all over the country I The "Daily Mirror" of the 9th November begins with a big heading:
Communist banned." "Police stop Saklatvala from speaking in Notts." "Welsh meetings prohibited.
The last paragraph is,
The Chief Constable of Glamorgan has banned meetings arranged to be held by the Communist party at Caerphilly.
Then there was the "Southern Daily Echo" with the heading "Ban on Communists"; the "Cheshire Daily Echo" also with heading "Ban on Communists"; the "Staffordshire Sentinel," "Ban on Communists in Notts"; the "Portsmouth Evening News," "Ban on Communists"; the "Swindon Evening Advertiser," "Ban on Communists"; the "Wolverhampton Express," "Ban on Communists"; the "Bristol Evening News," "No speeches: Communists banned in Notts"; the "Bradford Daily Telegraph," "Ban on Communists"; the "Paisley Express," "Ban on Communists"; and the "Aberdeen Express," "Ban on the Reds.
I put it to the Home Secretary that, under the Emergency Powers Act, his bounden duty is to watch the action of the Press of his own party as well as to watch the Press of the Communist party, and if the Press of his own party is giving a false interpretation to his action, is giving a. notorious and unconstitutional character to his action, then the Home Secretary, if he does not contradict that news at once and if he does not take proper measures to stop it in the future, is perhaps acting with a double object, that of denying his responsibility in this House and of taking credit in the country that he is
the lad
When times are bad
To keep the Reds away.
That is a doubled-faced policy, and we want to put a stop to it. If the Home
Secretary says that it is not the intention of the Emergency Powers Act to ban meetings simply because they happen to be organised by a political party which has as much right to carry on its propaganda as has the Tory party, then it is his duty to stop the newspapers from giving this false and unconstitutional news.
On a previous occasion in this House I pointed out what happened when the Chief Constable of Glamorgan stopped a meeting which I was to have addressed. It was a procession one afternoon, and it was banned, and when I raised the matter in this House I was a little misunderstood by my colleagues on the Labour benches. That very afternoon when the procession was stopped, a very mischief-making paragraph appeared in the Conservative party newspaper in the district—it is called the "Evening News" or "Mail," or something of that sort—a definitely mischief-making and a false paragraph, stating that the Chief Constable had banned these meetings for the satisfaction of local Labour leaders. They knew very well it was not so. However we might disagree with the local Labour leaders, we soon realised that those leaders viewed with the utmost disgust and contempt the banning of our meetings. Here was definite, political propaganda. The Chief Constable takes action and says he does so with the specific permission of the Home Secretary, and yet that action is used in a very doubtful manner by the local political authorities in order to drive a wedge between the Labour ranks—between the Communist section and the official section. I drew the attention of the Home Secretary then to that matter, and I said that it was impossible fur him to exercise his rights and functions and to carry out his duties—sometimes in a responsible manner and sometimes in an irresponsible manner—if he has given general powers to a chief constable. That does not make him any the less responsible for any wrong caused by a chief constable. If the Home Secretary takes up the general attitude that he is not even disposed to disagree with a chief constable, he should resign his position and save the country £5,000 and let the chief constables run the country, for he is not required.
Then we have pointed out on previous occasions that the very purpose for which the Regulation was sanctioned by this House is frustrated by the manner in which the Home Secretary is exercising his power or is permitting the chief constable to exercise it. We have been specifically told that the meetings have been banned in order not to throw an undue pressure upon the resources of the police and we were staggered as to the undue pressure thrown upon the resources of the police whenever our meetings were banned. Last Monday we saw a sight. I was in a very small courtroom where one of the hon. Members of this House was set upon his trial under the orders of the Chief Constable and the minimum number of police I counted present was 29 constables in uniform. And that is the way in which the Emergency Powers Act is relieving the pressure upon the police. We have read descriptions of the banning of meetings. We read a description in one of the newspapers that about 1,000 police were sent round a whole area as a cordon to stop A. J. Cook from reaching his audience, or to stop his audience from reaching A. J. Cook. If it is the case that the Emergency Powers Regulations were put forward in order that the Chief Constable might put less pressure on the police, then I suggest that far less pressure would be put on the police by allowing the meetings to be held than by banning them, because those of us who have been organising, conducting and addressing meetings for a long time past, have found that we know how to keep the law and how to keep order far better than do the chief constables and the uniformed police.
There is one incident to which I would like to draw the attention of the House as an illustration of how far the law has been stretched. We have a borough council by-election going in Battersea at present. Two of our Conservatice friends are retiring and we have to elect members in their place. There have been certain interesting developments and there has been a little excitement in the Labour camp. Sometimes it is pantomimic rather than formidable. It has not given rise to riots or anything of that kind. Last night we held a meeting in one of the committee rooms of Bath House. There were about 60 or 70 per-
sons present. Let hon. Members note that this was a meeting called specially for the purpose of a borough council by-election. The police had sent their detectives and were watching there. Before I reached that meeting—I was late—police officers twice came up and whispered to the chairman: "Is Saklatvala coming to-night?" I am not proud, but I do say that that is a waste of police energy. Such investigations are not made with the object of saving pressure on the police. More than half of the 60 or 70 persons present were women, and yet the police wanted to know, "Is Saklatvala coming?" The whole thing brings law and order into contempt. The Union Jack and the British law have to be subordinate to the Tory party. It is only a lunatic who would believe in law and justice in Great Britain while this sort of thing is being carried on and yet the Home Secretary says: "I am innocent. I am a simpleton. I can only receive my salary, but the orders will be carried out by the chief constables and I will let them carry on." That is not the way to carry on a Minister's job.

Mr. STEPHEN: I want to associate myself with the protest which is being made this evening concerning the conduct of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs. I want again to draw attention to those figures which were given by the Home Office in reply to a question yesterday. The first figures show that up to 19th October 22 meetings were prohibited. At that time the Home Secretary was directly responsible, and according to the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister, and all the rest of them, we were faced with the most grave constitutional crisis, and all the rest of it, that we had ever had in this country. Yet during that period, when the Home Secretary might be arraigned and challenged in this House for his action in connection with those meetings, in 172 days only 22 meetings or processions were prohibited in this country. But as time went on and as no rioting occurred, it became apparent that this Government was regarded every day with greater disgust and loathing by the people of this country. When we were coming near to the municipal elections a new policy was adopted by the Home
Office. Instead of the Home Secretary retaining his responsibility in connection with the banning of meetings, that power was handed over to the chief constables, and the extraordinary result was that in 26 days 63 meetings and processions were banned by the various chief constables. I am not at all sure that those last figures are accurate; I think they represent the minimum. I notice that the Home Secretary has on his face an expression of incredulity when I question the accuracy of those figures. I am not putting it down to anything malicious on the part of the Home Office with regard to those figures, but I say that I believe that the latter figure is a lesser figure than it should be, because when a meeting has been banned and an attempt has been made possibly to hold a meeting elsewhere so many miles away, and that meeting also has been stopped, then I do not think that that second meeting has been taken into consideration, and I do not think it is counted in the 63 which I have mentioned. Those 63 are the meetings at which the chief constables have issued formal documents in connection with the ban. There are the figures—22 meetings in 172 days when the Hume Secretary has to face the responsibility for answering to this House, but when he has got rid of that responsibility, and the meetings are in the hands of the chief constables alone, in 26 days we find that an increasing number of meetings have been banned, to the extent at least of 63. I ask the Home Secretary why the change was made? I put it to him that the change was made in view of the possibility of great meetings in the mining districts resulting in such a tremendous turning of public opinion that there would be overwhelming Labour victories in the council elections. I suggest that it was a deliberate policy on the part of the Government to prevent their opponents from revealing the kind of administration that we have in this country.
I used to think that the present Home Secretary, whatever else might be said about him, was a very courageous individual. One of my colleagues once described him as "stupidly honest." I would have been inclined to say that, possibly, he was stupidly courageous, compared with some of his fellow Ministers. For instance, I would never have thought of him running away from
a constituency and still remaining in this House as a Minister of the Crown. But since the handing over of this power to the Chief Constables I am not sure that my opinion of him in the past was not too flattering. Unless the Home Secretary can give very much more sound reasons than any we have had hitherto, I believe that the change was due to the fact that the Home Secretary was afraid to face the responsibility of answering for the banning of meetings in this House. Then I want him to tell us how many Conservative party meetings were banned. Will he state also how many of the meetings of the Primrose League, the Economic League, the Fascist organisation and the other curious chameleon forms that the Tory party takes in this country, have been prohibited. For example, did not the Home Secretary think that his own meeting at Newport was more likely to provoke riots than a meeting addressed by the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) or the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) or 'the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) or myself? I put it to the Home Secretary that, from what he knows and has heard of the opinion in the mining districts, this meeting in Newport was more likely to result in disorder than a meeting addressed by a Member from this side of the House. There were members of the Newport Council who were very anxious about that meeting. I do not know that they were anxious about the life of the Home Secretary, for I do not know that they were impressed by the wonderful jingle about
Jix the boy for work,
Jix the boy for play,
and all the rest of it, that has been sung from Tory platforms for some months. I understand that it is taking the place of the National Anthem at Tory meetings. These Labour councillors were concerned about ordinary individuals in that district who had suffered and who regarded the Home Secretary as the Member of the Government very largely responsible for their sufferings. But the meeting took place. There was no attempt made to ban it, although to the ordinary fair-minded individual there was everything to be said for the banning of it, even though it was to be addressed by the Home Secretary. The meeting took place. There did not seem to be very
much disorder. I read in the Press a report in which there was a suggestion that the Home Secretary slipped in by the back door or some sort of hidden entrance, or something like that. I forbear to quote the Scriptural injunction which begins
He that entereth not in by the door.
The right hon. Gentleman knows what follows, because I understand that he is one of the leading representatives protecting, the faith of this country. I would like him to give us some information on the points mentioned. I want also to draw his attention to what happened in Derbyshire last week-end. I have heard expressions as to the unfortunate position in which Chief Constables are being placed in this respect. People are asking why the Chief Constables and the police are so evidently on the side of the coalowners. What is the reason for it? How can we explain it? From the ordinary human point of view, from the point of view of the suffering millions of people in the country, there is so much reason why there should be a great amount of sympathy among the police for the miners. Yet all their actions are the other way. Meetings are banned in increasing numbers, and in districts where there is no disturbance and no suggestion of any incitement to riot or destruction of property. The Home Secretary himself could hardly find words to express his admiration of the peacefulness and quietness with which this tremendous industrial dispute has been carried on. Yet in those districts the people are finding their meetings banned more and more by the police. They also have the consciousness that they were coming nearer and nearer to the crisis in the struggle, that what was taking place was an attempt to hoodwink the miners into acceptance of intolerable terms, and that to do so the police force somehow or other was being dragged into the dispute and was no longer simply the guardian of law and order, but that the police had become the thugs of the coalowners for the defeat of the miners. It may be said that that is an unfortunate view to take of the action of the police in those districts, and that it is not right. But there has been an increasing volume of opinion in those districts that there is something in this view.
We have often been told of the purity of administration in Britain and a con-
tract has been made between this country and the United States. People have pointed out that in this country we have not the doctrine of "the spoils to the victors" and that the administration here is incorruptible. There is no possibility of persuading the mining population in reference to that doctrine to-day. They know—they are convinced—that there has been corruption in connection with this matter. It may be said that one ought not to make a statement like that, if one is not able to prove it. I am quite willing to admit that I cannot prove it, but I would say that looking at the facts as we have seen them and as we have had experience of them, concerning the banning of these meetings, corruption is the only reasonable explanation. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) went to Derbyshire at the week-end. He had not spoken for over six months in England or Wales. There was nothing to suggest that the hon. Member had been making provocative speeches of any kind, but the first time he went to address a meeting in this country after an absence of six months he was prohibited by the action of the chief constable. The 'Home Secretary may say that he cannot challenge the action of the chief constable and that the chief constable must have had a feeling that something was going to happen. 'The Home Secretary cannot tell us, and no chief constable in the country can tell us of any untoward happenings following these miners' meetings. Yet a Member of this House is prohibited from speaking, and in that connection I ask the Home Secretary if the reason why Labour Members of Parliament have been prohibited from speaking is because Conservative Members can find no answer to their arguments.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: On what date was this alleged prohibition of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton)?

Mr. STEPHEN: Last week-end—on Sunday of this week. Meetings were banned at Staveley on Saturday and at Halfway and Swallow Nest on the Sunday. The hon. Member had to go into another county in order to address a meeting. Evidently the chief constable of the other county did not think the speech
was likely to cause the overthrow of the British Constitution, as this strange individual in Derbyshire seemed to think. I suggest another possibility in regard to this matter. I charge the Home Secretary, in his action in prohibiting Members of Parliament from addressing the people, with being afraid to let the truth be known concerning his own administration

Mr. WALLHEAD: Members of the Opposition.

Mr. STEPHEN: I contrast his action in that respect with his action in speaking himself at Newport where there were grave possibilities. Afterwards he went on to Scunthorpe, where he evidently felt he was in a comfortable position, and he proceeded to make this statement on which I challenge him. I quote from the Times":
Surely no one who knows the facts will deny that there are members of the British House of Commons who have been over to Moscow and have been in close touch with Moscow.
If the Home Secretary makes that statement, I would say this: Surely no one will deny that the Foreign Secretary has been over to Italy and has been in close touch with Mussolini? I do not think any Member on this side of the House would suggest that the Foreign Secretary is in the pay of, or is receiving a subsidy from Mussolini. But does the Home Secretary, in making a statement like that, merely wish to indicate that Socialists in Russia and Socialist Members of Parliament in this country have been conferring together regarding the advancement of Socialism generally? The Home Secretary is now face to face with the Opposition and with the Members to whom he refers, and I challenge him that in the sentence I have quoted there is an implicit charge of corruption against Members on this side of the House. The Home Secretary may say there is not such a charge, but I am confident that the implication left in the mind of any fair-minded person, or any ordinary Conservative at that meeting was that the people to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred were in the pay of Moscow.
As the Home Secretary has proved himself such a hold, gallant and chivalrous warrior on the Conservative platform with all this talk about Moscow, I wonder if he will use his influence with
the Conservative party and induce them to publish, within six months after the closing of the coal dispute, the accounts of the Conservative party and the contributions made to the Conservative party by the coalowners of this country. Many things have been said. The Home Secretary has said a lot of things about Mr. Cook, and the Secretary of State for India at times has allowed his spirits to overflow exceedingly when discussing Mr. Cook, and has made all sorts of charges. Frankly, I do not like that sort of thing. I do not like to say anything with regard to hon. Members opposite. I know that many hon. Members opposite think that it is not British and very unfair to make any suggestions regarding them, but with regard to Mr. Cook and hon. Members on this side of the House all sorts of things are suggested. We do not object to fair and legitimate criticism, but we object to our meetings being banned, and to the Government of forgery using the opportunities they have at the present time to try to shut down criticism of this wretched administration.
I believe there are millions of people in this country who believe that the Conservative funds, under the direction of the new chairman, a big coalowner, are going to profit exceedingly. I am referring to the chairman of the party, not the chairman of the people who work the organisation behind the scenes, but the chairman who presides at the conference, Lord Tredegar. We have got at the head of the Conservative party this coalowner, and with meetings in my constituency being banned, I say, though one cannot prove it, that there is a prima facie case at least for an inquiry as to whether there has not been corruption in connection with the banning of those meetings, and I would suggest to the Home Secretary that he might have a Government inquiry into the actions of those chief constables in prohibiting those meetings. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in a message to his candidate at Howdenshire, has suggested that this Administration will be remembered in history, if for nothing else, by its Widows and Orphans Contributory Pensions Act. That may be the best that can be said for it, but I am inclined to think that this Administration will be remembered for something vastly different, and that the
Home Secretary's actions will be the actions which will give this Government its place in history. When I think of how the miners and our people have been treated in connection with these meetings, and that there are so many people corning along to-day with an appeal about industrial peace and a truce for the next five years, I think they are a whole lot of sanctimonious humbugs, after the miners have been bullied and bullied, and after they have been reduced, and after they have been threatened with terms which will so reduce their standard of life. The responsibility of the Home Office and the Government for the position in which the miners are placed seems to me to make it much more likely in future that this Government will be remembered for its repressive action against its political opponents, whom it was afraid to meet in argument, and the headline that will greet the scholar in the history book in the school of the future in regard to this present Administration will be: "The Silly Willy Government."

Mr. WHITELEY: Like my right hon. Friend who opened this Debate, it is difficult for me to understand why there should have been such a large banning of public meetings since 19th October. I could quite understand that during the general strike the Home Secretary might have taken it into his head to have this particular Emergency Regulation put into operation, yet, as he knows, there were scores of us who left this House, and went into the various big industrial towns in this country, and held meetings during the course of that general strike which had the effect of keeping the peace in a far greater sense than all the police he could possibly have drafted into those areas could have done. I remember being in Derbyshire two or three weeks ago, when I saw, in every place to which I went, notices published by the chief constable to the effect that all public meetings in that area were from that time onward to be banned, yet I addressed 11 meetings in that area, two of which were open-air meetings, and we had not the slightest disturbance, in spite of the fact that at the open-air meetings particularly there were cordons of police around the crowd, and there was no trouble at all. As a matter of fact, these public meetings which have been held from time to
time in various parts of the country during this dispute have been the means of keeping the peace, and it is a strange thing that everybody on that side agrees, and even Magistrates in Court and Judges at Assizes agree, that there has never been such a great industrial conflict in the world as the present conducted on more peaceful lines.
The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has pointed out on previous occasions that he has used these Regulations quite fairly and has shown no bias, and on the last occasion when these Regulations were before the House I tried to show that there had been a good deal of bias displayed against the workers, that he was trying to prevent the workers from having their true freedom, and that he was giving a good deal of preference to the coalowners in this dispute. I want to know whether he is prepared to put into practice that which he has stated on many occasions, namely, that he is prepared to see that the balances are held as fairly as it is reasonable to expect. I want to draw his attention to a meeting reported on the 16th of November, and some of my hon. Friends have endeavoured to get a question on to the Paper in order to call his attention to this matter, but even their questions have been banned by the people at the Table, and we could not get them passed. This particular report states that
Colonel C. F. T. Leather, of Middleton Hall, speaking at Belford ex-service men's re-union, said that should the nationalisation of the land, for which Mr. Lloyd George was fighting at the present time, take place, the landowners, who were in the minority, would have to fight for their estates, and there would result a bloody revolution in the country.
If the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to carry these Regulations out in real justice to all sections, then this gallant Colonel's name ought to go on to his list, and he ought not to be allowed to address any further meetings in this country, because this is really creating disaffection and is preaching bloody revolution, and that is by a man representing the opinion of the Conservative Government in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Read it again!"] I am asked to read the letter again.

Sir W. JOYNSON - HICKS: I have read it.

Mr. WHITELEY: I want to say to the Home Secretary that I think he has got the wind up very badly with respect to certain calls that are made on him from time to time, and that, as a result, he is seeing that large numbers of people are drafted into areas in this country who have been connected with the Guards, or with some ether section of His Majesty's Forces at one time or another in their life. They are put into policemen's clothes, and sent into those areas with no numbers, so that no one can report them. These people are creating disaffection. They have gone into our colliery areas, where there has never been trouble in the history of the country, and have said, "We came here expecting to find trouble, and we can find none. You people have no fight in you." They are using foul and filthy language, and irritating the people, making even the most mild men turn round and take action from time to time.
Therefore, I want to say to the Home Secretary that there are two or three things which he ought to keep strongly in mind. One is with regard to the importing of these people into these areas. We have no fault to find with the Durham county policemen, who have been there all the time. It is with these imported people, who are sent there with the idea that there is going to be a row, and if they cannot find one, they are determined to make one. That is one of the points I want the Home Secretary to take into his serious consideration. I quite appreciate that he has a difficult time, because 80 per cent. of right hon. and hon. Members on the opposite benches would put into operation to-day, if they dared, the dictatorship of a Mussolini. I have never known it so near in this country as during the last two or three weeks, and I can appreciate the Home Secretary has a very difficult time in retarding or rebuffing the people who are pressing from behind for the bringing into operation of some dictatorship of that kind.
The next point to which I would refer is the unfair method that is operating in our local Courts to-day. I do not know how it is operating in other parts of the country, but in the North of England we are having to stand all kinds of
insults in Courts to-day from actual coalowners who are sitting on the bench, and are using their authority as justices of the peace, and as acting magistrates, to go out of their way to insult our people. At least, we are entitled to full justice. We are entitled to go into Court, and to face and expect the consequences of whatever action we have taken if we have contravened the law of this country. But we ought not to have to sit there and be insulted by people who are actually coalowners on the bench.
Rather than have the intimidation which has been going on for so many weeks in our colliery districts by these imported police, I think the Home Secretary ought to get back to the old days, ring the curfew bell and all have to go to bed at 9 o'clock, and so save a lot of the insults which are going about. Rather would. I have him pay attention to the fact that we are citizens of this country and entitled to treatment as citizens, and we ought not to be insulted by these imported blackguards who come in under the guise of police officers. If the Home Secretary wants to keep our people in good spirit, and get them to show the same good will which they have shown all these weeks, he will pay a little more attention to that side of the matter, and see that a little better treatment is meted out than has been the case in the past.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I think that the Home Secretary himself will not regret the initiation of the Debate this evening, because there are so many allegations made and specific instances adduced in support of the allegations by previous speakers, that he will desire an opportunity to be given to him of replying to those allegations before the House adjourns for the day. We could very well have left this discussion to another day, when, possibly, we could have raised this great issue in another form, but we desired to concentrate upon this particular aspect of the problem with which we are now concerned, namely, the banning of public meetings. It is in respect of those banned meetings that I propose to invite the Home Secretary's attention for a few minutes. The charge which I would like, in common with my fellow Members on this side, to adduce against the Home Secretary is in plain terms that, in spite
of an undertaking which he quite distinctly gave on previous occasions when we were discussing the Emergency Power Regulations in this House, that the powers under those Regulations should not be used vexatiously, those powers have been used vexatiously, and have been in such a way as to betray political bias and political prejudice. That, I think, the Home Secretary will agree, is stating the case quite broadly, quite frankly, and quite brutally. And yet I think, in a way, he would not have it otherwise. I think he prefers to have stated frankly what we have to say, rather than that it should be clothed in a nice form of words.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Hear, hear!

Mr. JONES: I accuse the Home Secretary, therefore, of having failed to guarantee to all citizens in the State the same measure of freedom under the law. I accuse him of having failed to carry out the undertaking which he gave on previous occasions that this extraordinary piece of legislative power with which he has recently been endowed, should not be used in a harsh and vexatious way at all. The banning of these meetings has been undertaken under the Emergency Powers Act. It will be agreed by everybody in the House that those powers are extremely wide. They are very unusual in character; they are comprehensive in their scope and they endow the right hon. Gentleman with a measure of authority with which, in ordinary circumstances, he is not endowed. Especially on account of the extraordinary powers with which he is clothed by these Regulations, Parliament, in its wisdom, has said, "Now, these powers are so wide and so extraordinary that we cannot allow you to exercise them except from month to month, and you must come back to Parliament for authority for a continuance of this period as every month goes by." It is quite clear, therefore, that. Parliament regards these powers as being highly dangerous in character, or, at least, very extraordinary in their nature, and as powers which it is incumbent upon Parliament and the officer responsible to Parliament to exercise with the utmost measure of care and caution. What were the words the right
hon. Gentleman himself used, about the beginning of July? He said:
I shall be prepared to say that the Regulations will be administered in accordance with the best traditions of British justice.
I submit to the Home Secretary that so far from his having carried out that pledge we have had the law administered in accordance with the worst traditions of this country, and that the law has been applied with a considerable measure of political bias.
9.0 P.M.
I ventured a week or so ago to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman concerning certain happenings in my own constituency, and at the risk of repetition I will tell the House what actually happened. A young lady who, I gather, does not usually appear on public platforms for the Communist party, at least does so very rarely, was sent down to my constituency and landed at Caerphilly Station rather late in the evening of Saturday—Saturday week. She was due to address some meetings in the Caerphilly area and the Abertridwr area. She gathered there was some objection to these meetings on the part of the police, and in order to verify the position she took the trouble to go to the local police station in company with a local convert of that party—a party to which I do not personally belong—to ask if there was any truth in the general statement that the meetings were banned. In reply she was given this notice, and I ask the Home Secretary to note the words:—
COUNTY OF GLAMORGAN. PUBLIC NOTICE.
In pursuance of Regulation 22, Subsection (1), of the Emergency Regulations, No. 7, 1926, I have been duly authorised by the Home Secretary to hereby prohibit the holding of any meeting under the control of the organisation named the Communist party of Great Britain, or under the control of ally branch of that organisation, within the districts and at the places hereafter mentioned.
It will be observed that there is nothing in that paragraph to indicate that the ban upon the meetings of that particular political organisation was not to apply right to the end of this industrial dispute. No initial date and no final date were given. It was a general ban, and apparently it was implied that it was to apply until such time as either the Home Secretary or the Chief Constable of Glamorgan, in
their good will, might presume or condescend to withdraw the ban. Then the notice named the places: Caerphilly and Abertridwr, and continued:
The holding of any such meetings within the prescribed period from the 6th November to the 8th November, 1926, is also prohibited.
That was signed by the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire. This lady was an entire stranger to the district, and she must have been an entire stranger to the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire. I do not suppose he knew anything about the lady, except that she had been announced to speak for the Communists in Caerphilly. If that be true, what right bad the Chief Constable to assume that this lady, an entire stranger to him, would be likely to say something of which he would be likely to disapprove? If she had been allowed to speak and hat contravened the law in some way or other I could have understood it, but I object to either the Home Secretary or any of his underlings presuming in advance that so-and-so is likely to say something that is likely to be a breach of the law. Let us at least give people the opportunity to break the law, and if they do, then bring to bear on the situation the vast and extensive powers which are already in existence. [Interruption.]

Mr. MONTAGUE: That is English law.

Mr. JONES: I think my proposition is a fair one. Assume everyone is innocent until you have evidence to prove they are guilty, and in order to prove they are guilty use the ordinary processes of law, but do not make a chief constable both Judge and jury and chief witness as well.
That is one side. Let me put the other side. I cited this in the House some week or so ago. My local Labour party agent was due to address two meetings—to hold two debates—in my constituency. I ask the Home Secretary to note these facts as indicating the point I wished to drive home, that of political bias. He was to have a public debate with a Tory speaker who had visited the area several times, a man by the name of Sheppard. A public challenge had been thrown out for a public debate and had been accepted by my agent, and representatives of both sides had met and had decided to print a certain number of tickets for the meeting. I think 500 were to be printed, and 250 given to one side and 250 to the other. An independent
chairman was also appointed. Another debate was also arranged with a Communist at Aberitridwr. On the day the debate was to take place with the Communist, my agent was summoned to the local police superintendent's office. He was told, "You are going to debate with a Tory." My agent said, "Yes, I am." "Well," said the officer—not the chief constable, but I presume he was acting under the instructions of the chief constable—"I am sorry to say that I must prevent the debate." "What, with a Tory?" said my agent. "Yes, with a Tory," was the reply. "Why, are you afraid of a row?" asked my agent, "No," said the officer, "I am not afraid of the debate or of a row, but of the consequence after the debate."
That debate was stopped. My agent asked the local officer, "If the debate is not to take place, will this speaker be allowed to come into the area? He has been several times during this strike, and has been allowed to speak, and never once has a meeting been banned." "Oh, no," said the officer, "I will see that he does not come in." Then the question turned on what was to happen to the Communist debate. The officer said, "You are debating to-night with a Communist." "Yes," said my agent, "is that banned, too?" "Oh, no," said, the officer, "you can hold the debate with the Communist." I ask why is one debate stopped and another debate encouraged? Why is it to be assumed that a debate with a Tory, where the Tory point of view would be put forward, would lead to a riot, and the debate with a Communist, where the views of Communism would he put forward, would lead to no riot whatever? The debate with the Tory is banned while the debate with the Communist is allowed to go on. I think that is evidence of real bias. Will the Home Secretary tell us on what ground, if it is not political prejudice, that the whole of the meetings of the Communist party have been banned? Why should the right hon. Gentleman assume that people ought not to be allowed to hear the arguments for Communism? Why should he act in such a grandmotherly way and say that the people shall not be allowed to listen to appeals on behalf of Communism? I can assure the Home Secretary that I am quite able to look after Communism in my own constituency
without his assistance, and I cannot meet that propaganda unless the Home Secretary allows free discussion. What is the main argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite against the Communist movement? [Interruption.]

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): I hope that the hon. Gentleman is entitled to be listened to in silence, and also every hon. Member and right hon. Gentlemen who follows him.

Mr. JONES: What is the argument? They say that the philosophy of Communism is of such a nature that it involves a dictatorship. They contend that by Communism the principle of individual liberty is in jeopardy, and they say that in Russia, for example, the right of freedom of opinion is crushed. What has the Home Secretary been doing in this country in this respect? What has he been doing in Caerphilly, Yorkshire, and Durham? As a matter of fact there is scarcely a county in the mining areas where you have not interfered in one way or another with the right of public discussion during the coal stoppage. No doubt the Home Secretary will say that my statement is true, and he will probably say, "I do not do it. It is the Chief Constable who does it." How does the Chief Constable come to be possessed of such powers? If representations are made to the Chief Constable of Mon-mouthshire by the County Council for acting in such a way he simply replies, "Fiddlesticks to you!" The obvious deduction is that there is no local authority that has any control over the exercise of the discretion of the Chief Constable. No Watch Committee can control him, and no Standing Joint Committee can control him, and if the Home Secretary cannot control him I would like to know who can.
We are in this position. There is no power in this country at this moment and no one answerable in the House of Commons for the exercise with due caution of the most priceless liberty this race possesses, namely the right of free speech. The Home Secretary disclaims responsibility, and this power is in the hands of somebody who is entirely above local control. In handing over his control in this way the right hon. Gentleman has betrayed the undertaking he gave to this House some time ago. I
have already said that there is political bias in this matter. Not long ago a public meeting was held in St. Pancras under the auspices of the Fascist organisation. If the Home Secretary will look up this case he will find in the columns of a local Tory paper public notices to the effect that at the meeting I have referred to there was rowdyism expected and an intimation was given in the local Press that a disturbance was anticipated and a staff of stewards was provided by the local Fascist organisation. Here you have a case of a publicly advertised meeting with a public reference to the possibility of disorder. Was that meeting banned? That meeting was not banned because it did not happen to be held in a mining area by a Labour organisation, but it happened to be a political organisation acceptable to the friends of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. For that reason this particular meeting gets ample protection and freedom to hold its meetings.
Let me now come to the Home Secretary's meeting at Newport last Monday. Let me say that I am entirely and heartily in accord with his right and with the assertion of his right to address a public meeting anywhere in the country. I want him to speak as often as possible, because the more he speaks the stronger our movement grows. At the meeting of the Home Secretary at Newport the Chief Constable was on the platform. I do not complain of that, but I want to ask th right hon. Gentleman if he is entitled to adequate police protection at a public meeting why, instead of banning other public meetings, does he not provide public protection for those who are in a less fortunate position. If the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to public protection so is everybody else. There is nothing sacrosanct about the right hon. Gentleman, but there is something sacrosanct about the great principle of entire freedom for everyone to address public audiences on public questions anywhere in the country.
During, the War some of us took a very unpopular line. We addressed public meetings here, there, and everywhere, but. I do not remember in my own case one single meeting being banned. I do not remember being prevented by the operation of the law from addressing any public meeting. I know disorders were
threatened. I know there was the case of the Leader of the Opposition who came down to address a meeting in Cardiff, and an agitation was worked up against that meeting for days and days, but the meeting was not banned. Here we are in times long after the War when the public mind is not nearly so exacerbated as it was during the War, and there is not so much ill-temper or intensity of feeling in regard to public issues as there was during the War. Yet in those days when the whole nation was involved there was comparatively little doing in regard to the banning of public meetings. Now the Home Secretary uses extraordinary powers in this way for the simple purpose, as I think I have tried to prove, of suppressing his own opponents.
I submit to him that this form of activity is a most unfortunate one, is an unjustifiable one, and is a very prejudiced one. I say more. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the list of banned meetings in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and South Wales, he will find this curious fact, that the banned meetings were nearly all during the weekend, 5th, 6th and 7th November. There must be a master mind behind the whole lot. It is rather curious that the Chief Constable of Derbyshire thought of this at the same time as the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire, and that the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire thought of it at the same time as the Chief Constable of Yorkshire. What is the meaning of it? Will the right hon. Gentleman give us the assurance to-night that that is an entirely spontaneous act on the part of the local officials concerned? In any case, whether it is or not, in our judgment he is answerable to the House for the due exercise with caution and discretion of the powers under this Act. I assert again"—I regret to have to do it—that the right hon. Gentleman has been unfair and unjust in his application of this law, and that he has done more, he has brought the administration of justice during the application of these Regulations into contempt among well-meaning citizens throughout the country.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: If I were guilty of the terrible things of which the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) has just accused me, I should be unworthy of holding the high office which I now hold. [Interruption.] As I have
sat here now for nearly two hours, and have listened without a single interruption on my part, I think hon. Members might listen to me without interruption during the half-hour or so for which I shall speak, and I trust that they will at !east give me fair play. [Interruption.] I am suggesting that all should keep quiet.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: We will not keep quiet.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The point at issue is whether I have acted improperly in regard to the administration of these Regulations. In the first place, the speech of the hon. Member for Caerphilly would have been quite sound if no Regulations had been passed, and if I had exercised some abnormal powers for prohibiting free speech. But, under the provisions of the Regulations which were passed by the House of Commons, the right of free speech is, during the present emergency, limited. Let us get that quite clear. I have spoken in previous Debates in this House in regard to the right of free speech. It is one of the greatest possessions of the English nation. There is no dispute between hon. Members opposite and myself in regard to that matter. But, during the emergency, Parliament has enacted certain Regulations, which have the power and force of law, and I am given by Parliament authority, under those Regulations, either myself to prohibit, or to allow a chief constable to prohibit on my authority, any meeting or any procession which, in his or my opinion, is likely to lead to a. breach of the peace or to cause disaffection. I agree that that—let us realise it at once—is a very great inroad on the ordinary right of free speech; but the ordinary right of free speech does not exist in its fullness at the present moment—it is modified by that particular Clause in the Regulations.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: It should be the same for everyone.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am responsible if, in the administration of these Regulations, I act unfairly, if I act with bias, or if I act wrongly—I am responsible to this House; and let me say at once to the House, in order to clear one matter away, that I take the very
fullest responsibility for what has been done by the chief constables. I gave them their authority, and, therefore, if any of them have made mistakes, I am responsible for them; I am responsible to the House of Commons for the way in which they carry out that delegated authority to act on my behalf. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), who opened this Debate, complained, as some other Members have complained, of the extraordinary difference between the number of meetings banned in the first five months and the number banned during the last month. He complained also of lodge meetings having been stopped. Probably he did not know that a few days ago I received a deputation from the Miners' Federation, which included Mr. Herbert Smith and Mr. Cook. The secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Mr. Citrine, was also there, and several other leaders of the Trades Union Congress and the Miners' Federation. They came to see me in regard to my action in this matter. We came face to face, and they made certain complaints. Two of the main com-plaints were that the police had banned lodge meetings, and that the police had acted improperly in regard to peaceful picketing. I see on the Front Opposition Bench the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), who was one of that deputation. They put their ease to me, I think, quite fairly, and I hope and think that the gentlemen who came were satisfied to some extent with my answer. I gave them two undertakings. I said quite clearly that, if lodge meetings had been banned, it was an improper exercise of the power—

Mr. LEE: Does that also apply to men going to their lodge meetings?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Certainly. A lodge meeting is perfectly free. It is not a public meeting; it is a meeting, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting said this evening, of the members of the union in the district in order to discuss measures between themselves and do the business of the lodge, and the police ought not to interfere. As I have explained to the House, I received this deputation from some of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues in regard to this matter a few days ago, and I undertook to put that matter right with the police. I was also questioned
on the subject of the interpretation by the police of peaceful picketing, and one gentleman who came with the deputation produced a Circular which I had issued some 11 months ago, at the end of last year, explaining the position in regard to peaceful picketing and peaceful persuasion. I said to the gentlemen who came, "Are you satisfied with my interpretation of the law in that respect?" and someone was good enough to say that I had explained it quite fairly in my last speech in the House of Commons. They said, "We are satisfied. Will you communicate that Circular again to the police, and tell them that that Circular has not been abolished in any way by the provisions of the Emergency Regulations?" Immediately after the deputation had gone, I took steps to prepare a letter to the police, and, on the 12th of this month, I sent out to all the chief constables a letter, which I am quite willing should be laid on the Table of the House. I will read some of the Clauses in it. In the first place t detailed the fact that this deputation had been to see me, and proceeded as follows:
In the first place, representations were made to the effect that steps had been taken by the police in some instances to stop the holding of miners' lodge meetings"—
I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give his very careful attention to this, because it has been really the prevailing incident to-night—
which, it is stated, would ordinarily be held in private premises and be attended by only a limited number of persons, members of the lodge, and could give rise to no fear of any breach of the peace or promotion of disaffection in any way, and the Secretary of State undertook to point out to the chief constables that in such circumstances the prohibition of the meetings would not he within the scope of Regulation 22. He also undertook to point out that the police are not entitled to he present at such meetings.
I have carried out my undertaking, I think the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley will agree. I was also asked if I would write to the police regarding the circular about "peaceful picketing."
It was also represented by the deputation that in some cases pickets acting strictly in accordance with the law, as explained, for instance, in the Home Office Circular of 30th December last, had been interfered with by the police, and, in particular, had been forbidden to speak to
miners going to work unless first addressed by them. The deputation suggested that it might have been thought in some instances that the Home Office Circular of 30th December had been superseded by the provisions of the Emergency Regulations, but that, of course, is not the case. The Circular of the 30th December must be read in conjunction with that of 8th of October last relating to safety men, but read together these Circulars represent, the Secretary of State believes, a correct statement of the law, and should be followed by the police in dealing with pickets.
I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that I carried out my part. That really disposes of the attack made this evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting. I think he did indulge in a little persiflage in regard to my own speeches, and the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. C. Stephen) made some jokes about my speech at Newport. It was a subject of common joking by Members opposite that I had gone down and made what might have been a provocative speech. It is difficult for me to condemn a speech that I am going to make, but if anybody had taken the trouble to read the two speeches which I made in Newport that evening—there were good reports in the local papers—they will see there was not one single word of a provocative character in them. They really were an appeal for peace. Those speeches were made when I knew negotiations were taking place and that a grave responsibility was upon any speaker on any side of politics at that moment. Certainly I am not ashamed of the speeches made. There was no disturbance of any kind. Although there were some of my political opponents in the room, the meetings were of an exceedingly friendly character, and I have no complaints regarding any action taken by any member of the audience in regard to myself.
The hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) really complained mostly in regard to overstepping the mark and the banning of some of his own meetings. He told me that a meeting connected with some of the municipal elections in his district was visited by police in order to see whether he had arrived there or not. The hon. Gentleman should take that as a compliment. I always like to read his speeches, and I have instructed the police to let me know of any speeches made by him. I generally do him the courtesy of reading his speeches. He has not made a speech for some little time that I have
any objection to at all. I would like also to say—I think it was the hon. Member for Camlachie who raised the point—that no meeting in connection with any municipal election has been banned either by chief constables or myself. There can be no idea that I was using the Emergency Power Regulations—

Mr. C. STEPHENS: The point I have made was not that a distinctive election meeting was banned but that general political meetings in the district, or the meeting in connection with the miners that they wanted to run, were banned in order to prevent the development of that opinion which at the election would manifest itself.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The statement of the hon. Member is a little farfetched. Let me clear some of the chief constables of the accusations laid against them. It came to my knowledge about a month ago that the Communist party determined upon a whirlwind campaign throughout the mining districts against any settlement at all. The language they used was not against myself but against the leaders of the Labour party whom they threatened and accused of selling the interests of the miners and so forth. In the "Workers' Weekly" less than a fortnight ago there was a statement on behalf of the Communist party. Here it is:
Within the Miners' Federation the party must consistently fight for the intensification of the struggle by the withdrawal of the safety men. At the same time the party has been foremost in fighting and exposing every defeatist—Varley, Spencer, Hodges, the Bishops' memorandum, etc.
They went on to publish their plan of campaign. In weak areas where a large number of miners had gone back they were concentrating on getting the workers out. The problem of the safety men was to be their second line—
In places where the safety men have come out and places filled with blacklegs, get them all out.

Mr. STEPHEN: There is nothing illegal in that.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I will not say there is anything illegal in that. If there had been, they would have been prosecuted. These Regulations were passed by Parliament to give extra legal power to the Secretary of State to prevent meetings which might cause a breach of the peace or disaffection. I
admit they are not within the Common Law, otherwise there would be no need to pass these Emergency Regulations. They are an additional power, given to the particular officer of State by the democratic assembly of the House of Commons in order that he should exercise those powers to the best of his ability for the safety of the State to prevent crime or riot, and not wait till crime or riot has taken place.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Would the right. hon. Gentleman suggest that an alternative political programme, however foolish it may appear to him, is criminal? There is no suggestion in that article for a rising or a disturbance of the peace. It is asking the miners to refuse terms put forward by the coalowners and their agents, the present Government. Why is it criminal?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Gentleman has taken the opportunity of my courtesy in allowing him to ask a question to make statements not ordinarily made in asking questions. The whole House knows I am willing to give way. It is not fair of the hon. Gentleman to get up and interrupt the line of my speech in that way. The point I am making is that at a critical juncture, when a great many of the best and most trusted leaders of the Labour party were endeavouring to secure peace, there was this attempt at a definite programme of campaign throughout the country in the mining districts by the Communist party speakers, who were named in their published advertisements, and were told off to certain districts—Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Nottingham and so forth. May I ask the House to listen to the kind of thing that is spread about:
A fresh outbreak of scabs, the disease commonly found amongst rats, vermin, and other creepers, was discovered last week. The majority of the patients were affected by the disease during the last week or two, but a few mass poultices cured them. This disease leaves an ugly scar known as the Traitor's Scab Brand. This brand very often visits the descendants for three or four generations.
We know quite well what that means.
It is hard lines, but the sins of the fathers shall dwell upon the children.

Mr. LAWSON: What paper is that?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: One of the "Fight to Win" Young Workers' Com-
munist publications, Supplement of 9th October. I have an early copy of the Workers' Weekly," which is to be published to-morrow.

Orders of the Day — "DOWN WITH TERMS OF SURRENDER."

"A Direct Betrayal." "They are terms of despair." "Who the Hell gave the Delegates their mandate?" "Have we been sold again?"…"No words can describe the magnificent heroism of our miner comrades."
Still the cry is 'Surrender.' The Devil! Fight on.

There is a lot more of that kind in connection with this campaign, the party I do not say acting illegally, but acting, in my view, in such a manner as would be exceedingly detrimental to the efforts that are being made on all hands, and have been taking place during the last fortnight to arrive at a settlement. They are deliberately intended to go down to the districts and work up a state of feeling which will prevent anything in the nature of a peaceful settlement of the dispute. I took the responsibility quite clearly. On 29th October I wrote to all the chief constables calling their attention to this campaign of the Communists and quite definitely and distinctly authorised them to ban all the Communist meetings during this period at which these speakers were announced to speak. I am not standing here in a white sheet. I did it because I believed it to be right in the interests, not merely of the country, but of the Labour party as a whole.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: Is the ban now removed?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It is very difficult, of course, to say what the future is going to be. To-morrow is a very anxious day for us all in the mining world. If a settlement takes place tomorrow and the men go back to work, I hope, of course, that not only this ban but all other restrictions will be removed. Nothing would be better than to see the country restored as fast as possible to the old-time friendship and the old-time working, and the liability to anything in the nature of these Regulations I hope will very soon be at an end.

Mr. SUTTON: Must the men submit to slavery still?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have taken no part in the mining negotiations. I am not on the 'Cabinet Committee. I have had my own very difficult job to carry out. My duty has simply been to preserve law and order as far as I could. I am not expressing any opinion. I have not really had time to go through the terms fully. That is a matter for the miners' leaders and the trade union leaders who are helping them in these negotiations. All I am saying is that if they come to terms no one will be more pleased than myself that all my powers will very quickly come to an end. I hope hon. Members do not think it is an easy task to have to administer these regulations. It is very difficult indeed.
Now I come to the facts. Having the House that I authorised the banning of these Communist meetings, I am going to tell them what. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting and the hon. Member for Caerphilly did not know when they made their speeches accusing me of banning so many more meetings during the last months than in previous months. Nearly all the 63 have been these Communist meetings. There has not been a larger proportion of meetings of the ordinary type unattended by those engaged in this Communist campaign than during the previous few months. I have been asked about a meeting that was banned when the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was going to speak. On the 14th of this month the hon. Member was announced to speak at a meeting in conjunction with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). I am not going to say anything about the unfortunate incident that occurred in regard to the hon. Member for Dumbarton. But after the summons against the hon. Member for Dumbarton in respect of a particular speech, on which I express no opinion, he came down to Derbyshire with his colleague the hon. Member for Bridgeton in order to make a further speech. The banning of that. meeting was the banning of a meeting intended primarily to be attended by the hon. Member for Dumbarton. Surely the House is not going to say that the chief constable, knowing that a summons had been issued in regard to a particular speech by a particular person, was not justified in banning that person from making another speech.
Surely if the Regulations are to be acted on at all, no one can deny that that was a proper exercise for the discretion of the chief constable. The hon. Member for Bridgeton was speaking the same night at another meeting at which he was, I understand, advertised to speak without the co-operation of his colleagues, and was not banned in any way at all. Not only was he not banned, but he went and delivered his speech, and there was nothing to complain of in it. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) probably did not quite realise the real facts of the case.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the inspector in charge of the meeting that was banned, which was to be addressed by the hon. Member for Bridgeton and the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs, in the first place allowed the hon. Member for Bridgeton to go in, and was prepared to allow him to address it, and it was only on his superior later arriving that he banned my hon. Friends from addressing the meeting? Further, is he aware that two miles away, under the same Chief Constable's authority, a meeting was allowed to be held at which the two speakers named were present, and at which no disturbance took place before or after?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have the report of the Superintendent in regard to this banned meeting:—

"The meeting duly commenced at 2.30. About 3.30 I received information that Maxton and Kirkwood had arrived. I proceeded there, and found them in the lobby of the hall. I was in uniform. I went up to Kirkwood and said, 'My instructions are to ban you.' I said to Maxton, I understand you are the principal speaker here to-day.' He replied, I am.' I then said, 'I am serving you with a form of notice banning the meeting.' I handed both of them a copy of the formal notice bearing their respective names. Maxton said, 'The meeting is going on inside.' I replied, Yes. If you both assure me you do not propose to enter and will go quietly away, there is no reason why it should not proceed.' Maxton said, 'Do you think we shall tell the like of you what we are going to do?' I said, 'My reply must be that the meeting is definitely banned.'"

Mr. STEPHEN: May I ask you to lay that?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It makes it difficult to read these statements desir-
ing to give the fullest possible information. It is an old Rule of the House, and I am bound, if the House desires it, to lay the Paper, but I am equally bound to say it makes my position a little more difficult when I desire to give the fullest possible information to the House. It is clear that the hon. Member for Bridgeton was not banned, and that he went to the meeting, which was held. The meeting was quite satisfactory—I hope there was a good audience—and there was nothing for me to complain about.
These are the accusations made against me, first of all, the rise in the number of prohibitions from 22 to 63 and, secondly, that Communist meetings were banned. I have explained how the number rose from 22 to 63, that it was because of the banning of the Communist meetings, which were part of that particular campaign for preventing a settlement in the mining areas. I have stated, quite frankly, that I accept the fullest possible responsibility for that action, that it was not an attitude taken in this particular case by the chief constables themselves, but that it was my own action, communicated to the chief constables, telling them that in my view at this juncture these meetings would not be conducive to a peaceful state of the mining areas. I suggested to them that they should ban them and they did. It was entirely my responsibility.

Mr. WALLHEAD: On a point of Order. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) read an extract from a speech which the Home Secretary had delivered.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The right hon. Gentleman has given way.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Member can speak later. I have nearly finished.

Mr. WALLHEAD: But you cannot speak again in reply.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I can by the courtesy of hon. Members. There is only one other speech to which I would refer. I refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Whiteley), who made three complaints. One complaint concerned the speech of a certain Colonel Leather, which I admit was a very stupid speech, a very improper
speech. If that speech had been delivered in a mining area he would certainly have been prosecuted, but delivered, as I understand it was, at a Primrose League meeting—[HON. MEMBERS: "That made it worse."] At all events, it was not a very inflammable meeting.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Has anything happened as a result of any meeting I addressed?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must ask hon. Members to listen to the statement of the Home Secretary. There will be time for an answer if necessary.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman gave way. The question I put to him is this: You said that there was no disturbance as a result of the speech of Colonel—whatever his name may be—because there was no inflammable matter about, I ask you pointedly was there any disturbance in any of the districts that I visited?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Member is being prosecuted in a Court of law, and it would be absolutely improper for me, as I think it is improper for him, to attempt to discuss the case in the House of Commons while a prosecution is pending against him.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I want to press for an answer. He is simply quibbling.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has not given way.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Was there any disturbance?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Home Secretary is addressing the House.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Member for Blaydon raised a further point,, in regard to the importation of police into certain areas, and he made a very grave accusation.

Mr. WHITELEY: A true one.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. member came to see me this afternoon, and he saw my Under-Secretary yesterday, in regard to this accusation. He promised that he would give particulars. When he saw me this afternoon he said, "If I give you particulars of these
allegations, will you inquire into them? I do not want to raise them in the House." I said that, I would. The hon. Member has not yet furnished the particulars. Instead of doing so, he has chosen to come here into the House to make a statement, without giving me any particulars at all. All that I can say to him, as said this afternoon, is that if he will give me the particulars, I will cause the fullest inquiries to he made into the accuracy of the statement.

Mr. WHITELEY: On a point of explanation. I have the particulars, which the Home Secretary will get, of the actual cases to which I wish to draw attention; but the statement I made to-night was a general accusation in regard to the importation of police into our county, not in any particular area, or on account of any meeting or demonstration, or anything that is being held in the county, but a general accusation as to the type of police that has been imported into the county generally.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am not going to accept a general accusation. If the hon. Member or any other hon. Member has a complaint to make I will have the fullest inquiry made, if they give me particulars. If they tell me that certain language or certain action has been bad, and where the things of which they complain have taken place, I will have inquiries made, but it will not do to come to the House of Commons and to make a general accusation, while at the same time the hon. Member is preparing a special accusation respecting the police. If he can give me any particular cases, or if any other hon. Member can give me particular cases of which they complain, I will cause inquiries to be made. Finally, he said that he and his friends had to sit in the Police Court and suffer insults from the Magistrates. That is a very serious complaint. I do not know at the moment to what he refers. It is not quite fair to the Magistrates of a county like Durham to make these allegations in the House of Commons, without substantiating them.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: If any accusations of that kind were made, they could not properly be made in a Debate of this kind. If they were made, it would be my duty to point out that it
must be made on a Motion. I can only say that I hope the subject will not be pursued.

Mr. WHITELEY: On a point of Order. I had that in mind, because in a previous Debate when I took the opportunity of bringing definite information to the Home Secretary respecting the action of a particular magistrate you ruled me out of order.

Mr. BUCHANAN: On a point of Order. You rule, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that it is not competent for any hon. Member of this House, unless on a specific Motion, to make reference to a decision or an action of a Justice of the Peace. May I submit that that rule refers only to persons appointed under the Crown; that is to say, appointments which are the direct outcome of the action of one of the Secrearies of State in this country or the Secretary of State for Scotland, such appointments coming under the Crown; but that in regard to magistrates, not being Crown appointments, not being Parliamentary appointments, it is quite competent for a Member of this House to criticise them?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have made inquiry into that point, and I under- stand that the rule against criticizing judicial decisions or the action of judicial persons while in the discharge of their functions has been held to cover the case of magistrates.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I will not pursue the matter further, except to say that if any hon. Member who has an accusation of this kind to make likes to send such accusation to me I will have inquiries made. I think I have answered all the accusations which have been made with regard to the administration of these Emergency Regulations. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the meeting at Caerphilly?"] Oh, yes. The complaint there was that the chief constable had acted with bias because he stopped a debate between a Tory speaker and the Labour agent, and had allowed a debate between the Labour agent and a Communist. I really think that is a very small matter. The point I have been addressing myself to is whether in the exercise of the powers entrusted to me have exercised them fairly, honestly, and with good intention,
or whether I have exercised them with a deliberate political bias. All I can say is that if I have, I am no longer fit to stand at this Box or to serve in any other capacity. The House of Commons can be my judge. I am a House of Commons man. I have been here for many years, and I am prepared to take the verdict of this House as to whether I have in a time of the gravest difficulty exercised these powers in a manner conducive to the welfare of the country as a whole.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I want to raise, Mr. Speaker, a point of order in connection with a matter I raised when the Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hope) was in the Chair. In a ruling which the Deputy-Speaker gave just now, in the course of the Home Secretary's speech, he said that no reference could be allowed to the decisions of any justice of the peace or persons holding the office of justice of the peace in this country. I want to raise this point, as to whether this is not expressly laid down in the "Manual of Procedure." On page 29 of the "Manual of Procedure," Rule No. 8 says:
Unless the discussion is based on a substantive motion drawn in proper terms. See May, 271,323 where the authorities mentioned include the Heir to the Throne, the Viceroy of India, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker, The Chairman of Ways and Means, Members of either Houses of Parliament and Judges of the Superior Courts of the United Kingdom, including persons holding the position of a Judge, such as a Judge in a Court of Bankruptcy or a County Court Judge.
I submit that the last definition, "or a County Court Judge," defines what is meant by a Judge, and, therefore, it follows that a Justice of the Peace is not a Judge, and that a Member of this House has a right to discuss the decision of a Justice of the Peace.

Mr. SPEAKER: There cannot be an appeal to me from the Deputy-Speaker, who was acting just now. I did not hear what his ruling was, but I have no doubt it was a perfectly correct rendering of our Rules. I am not prepared to say anything more in the matter.

10.0 P.M.

Mr. WALLHEAD: There is one point on which I think we are entitled to ask for a specific reply from the Home Secretary. In a speech at Scunthorpe, a day or two ago, the Home Secretary, dealing with the connection which is sup-
posed to exist between the Communist party in this country and the Government in Moscow, said:
No one is going to deny that there is a connection between Communism and Moscow. Surely no one who knows the facts will deny that there are members of the British House of Commons who have been over to Moscow and have been in close touch with Moscow. Those are the men who in the House of Commons itself have threatened us that we shall have a general strike again and again, until the revolutionary views which they hold are carried out.
We are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us a somewhat more specific statement, and to give us the names of those who have been over to Moscow and are in close touch with Moscow. The implication there is that there are Members of this House who are in the pay of Moscow, who take their orders from Moscow, and who are influenced in their duties towards this country by Moscow. My hon. Friend the Member for the Gower Division (Mr. Grenfell), the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. R. A. Taylor), the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. T. Griffiths) and the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. H. Hall) and myself, were in Moscow last year. The right hon. Gentleman can acquaint himself with our activities there. We visited the British Embassy and we saw Sir Robert Hodgson, who knew what we were doing, and I think we are entitled to know whether the implication is, that we are in the pay of any Government outside this country?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am sorry that I omitted to answer this question. There is nothing whatever in the speech I made at Scunthorpe which suggests by implication or otherwise that hon. Members in this House are in the pay of Moscow. There is not one single word or one single suggestion of that kind in any shape or form. The hon. Member I had in mind was the hon. Member who advocated in this House a recurrence of the general strike. That is the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell). What I stated was that there was certainly one hon. Member of this House—I do not accuse the hon. Member who has just spoken—who had been in close touch with Moscow, the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, and he stated in this House, I heard him, that this will not be
the last general strike, "there will be another and another and another until we get our own way."

Mr. WALLHEAD: That may very well have been a prophesy, although I think it is a very likely prophesy. But I still think there is an implication here, because it does not mention any hon. Member by name but says that there are some hon. Members who have been in Moscow. The charge is too general and the details altogether too limited for us to be entirely satisfied with it. My opinion is that the right hon. Gentleman talks too largely in his speeches. We have a right to some protection and to ask that he will not make these charges. On the general question his answer has been particularly weak. There is plenty of evidence to show that the right hon. Gentleman is engaged in a policy of preventing his political opponents having the right of free speech. I hold that it is a constitutional right of the Opposition if you speak on political platforms in this country about any policy advocated in this House. I would like to know when last a British Government prevented its political opponents—the official Opposition—from holding meetings and from exercising the right of free speech on the platforms in the country. I do not know when what occurred now occurred previously. The Home Secretary admits that he has permitted the chief constables to ban these meetings. We have attempted to put questions to him on that matter, and we have been told that there is nobody to whom we may put those questions. All authority has been denied. We cannot get any information as to whom we shall put questions on the action of the police officials in banning meetings on the authority of the Home Secretary. That is an infringement of the constitutional right of Members of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman has no right to issue instructions from his office and then to attempt to use his powers not to allow questions to be directed to him in this House on the matter.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: What does the hon. Gentleman mean? He says that I have used my power to prevent questions being put to me in this House. I have done nothing of the kind.

Mr. WALLHEAD: You evade questions which are put here.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No.

Mr. WALLHEAD: We have put questions with regard to the banning of meetings by police officials in the counties. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] In this House. The meetings were banned in the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire.

HON. MEMBERS: When did you put questions?

Mr. WALLHEAD: The Fascists are treated in a different manner, but a Fascist organisation is just as likely to be financed from Rome as the Communists are to be financed from Russia. At any rate, if the "Manchester Guardian" is anything to go by, the French Press are charging the Fascist Government of Italy with attempting to suborn their law and to stir up revolution in France. And if they do it there, they may still do it here. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea North (Mr. Saklatvala) has just handed me a copy of a reply to a question which states that the action of the Chief Constable in banning his meetings was taken under the authority given by the Home Secretary in pursuance of No. 32 of the Emergency Regulations, and that the Chief Constable suppressed the meetings arranged by the Communist party as they were likely to give rise to disaffection, and that the Home Secretary was not disposed to disagree. It is on the instructions of the Home Office that these officials act, and I think we are entitled to ask that we shall have the right to put questions in regard to the matter of the gentlemen who receive instructions from the Home Office.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I think, Mr. Speaker, that I ought to state that while you were out of the House I informed the House that the banning of the Communist meetings was done by my order, and I respectfully submit that if hon. Members desire to put questions in regard to these particular meetings I am responsible in this House.

Mr. HAYES: I rise to reply to some of the points put in this Debate by the Home Secretary. The, charge from this side of the House against the Home
Secretary is that he has been somewhat prejudiced in the administration of these Regulations against the working classes. If there was any justification at all for that charge I think it would be found in the statement which the right hon. Gentleman made when asked to explain why he did not commence a prosecution against a certain colonel who made a very stupid speech. "Stupid" was the word used by the right hon. Gentleman when he said that, had that speech been made by the gallant colonel in a mining area, he would have been prosecuted, my point is, do these Regulations apply only in the mining areas? Surely these Regulations are applicable throughout the length and breadth of this land, and yet there have been working-class people prosecuted and sentences passed upon them for having made speeches under these Regulations supposed to have caused disaffection in areas which are not mining areas. If it is good enough to send to prison members of the working class for making speeches contrary to the Regulations in an area which is not a mining area, then it ought to be good enough for this gallant colonel to be sent to prison for making a speech on the borders of a mining area in Yorkshire. In that respect I think the Home Secretary will have to review his attitude in the administration of these Regulations if people like this Colonel Leather and Lord Hunsdon and other people who have made speeches which have caused disaffection are allowed to go unhindered. The Home Secretary will have to review his attitude if he desires to get this side of the House to believe that he is carrying out these Regulations without bias.
The Home Secretary said that in some of his speeches he had appealed for peace. He must know, and he does, in fact, know, I am sure, that the primary duty of the police force of this country is the preservation of public tranquillity. He knows also that there is nothing more likely to cause unrest and ill-feeling among the populace than when the police take action which is arbitrary or in excess of what is regarded as their general duty. The right hon. Gentleman has quite frankly taken the full responsibility for the banning of meetings, but not only have meetings been banned, but it appears that the right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, banned particular speakers. It
seems to be more a case of the speakers than of the meetings. The right hon. Gentleman went on to explain that the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was allowed to make a speech in an area. other than the one which was attended by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), but under Regulation 22 it seems to me that the Home Secretary has not the power to delegate his authority, to give general permission to the chief constables of the country in respect of the general prohibition. According to the wording of Regulation 22, it would appear that the Home Secretary may authorise chief constables to prohibit meetings that may be held in contravention of the Regulation. How can the Home Secretary delegate his powers from now until the end of this emergency, when, according to the Regulations, he is to be the judge as to whether there is likely to be a breach of the peace? It would be interesting to know whether the right hon. Gentleman issued that special instruction to chief constables on the advice of the chief constables, or whether he sought their advice before issuing these instructions to them. He knows very well that a large number of Thief constables would prefer that these Regulations were not enforced. He knows very well that chief constables, superintendents, and inspectors of police in their own areas, if left unfettered by the Home Secretary, are quite able to deal effectively with their own local people. There is nothing more than the excess of power, or the importation of foreign constables into their own area, which is more likely to create disagreement with the local police.
The right hon. Gentleman should remember the experience of the police force in Liverpool in 1911—an experience which the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) will not forget. On that Sunday in Liverpool the police came into conflict with those who were involved in an industrial dispute. The conflict was not due to the way in which the local police handled the men engaged in the dispute, but was due entirely to feeling that had become inflamed by the knowledge that police from the Birmingham area were introduced to do a job that the Liverpool police were able to do without such assistance. You must have regard to the
psychology of the workers when they are engaged in industrial disputes. The psychology of the docker in Liverpool at that time—I am not sure that it has been altered—was expressed in words which were often spoken, "We do not object so much to our local coppers knocking us about but we do object to the Birmingham men being brought in to do it." I am giving the saying in the local vernacular.
I can assure the House that those who have had experience in handling the public in industrial disputes know only too well that the temper of the people is best maintained by allowing the local police to do their job for themselves. It may be said, of course, that all chief constables are impartial. It is very remarkable that the first ban which took place with any degree of publicity was a ban in Staffordshire against Mr. Cook, the Secretary of the Miners' Federation. The instructions of the Home Office appear to have gone out against the Communist party, but neither Mr. Cook nor any of the other banned speakers belongs to the Communist party. They are not members of the Communist party.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Mr. Cook is not under any ban at all. He was banned at one meeting.

Mr. HAYES: I am referring to the particular meeting at which he was banned. I am wondering why he was banned.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: That question was answered.

Mr. HAYES: It has not been answered in the sense that any real explanation has been given. Immediately after the ban was put on it was removed. There would appear to have been no justification in the circumstances either for the removal or the putting on of the ban. The police carry out their work under far more difficult circumstances when Regulations of this kind are imposed upon them, whether they like them or not. I am wondering whether the right hon. Gentleman did seek the opinion of the local police officers as to whether he should prohibit these meetings and processions, or whether in his desire to maintain the tranquillity of the country or in his conception of what was the maintenance of tranquillity, he instructed
the chief constables, and through them their superintendent and inspectors. I know that many of them in the minefields have been able to do better without these repressive tactics. Where there are great concourses of men, smarting under a sense of injustice owing to industrial conditions, the local police officer is often able to preserve order by a give-and-take method. It is not much of a give-and-take method if, when speakers go to a district, the Home Secretary puts on the local police force a tremendous tax, which is also put on the concourse of people gathered together, by saying that a man's speech shall not be delivered because it is likely to cause disaffection. If that argument is to be followed, I cannot understand why every speaker who has been in the minefields throughout the dispute has not been banned or subsequently summoned or arrested.
Would we have been faithful to the people whom we represent if we had gone into the minefields and preached a defeatist policy? I admit frankly that I have spoken at many meetings, and I trust that I have never gone outside the law. But I have never struck a defeatist note. I have attempted to encourage the miners in the strike, for their heroism deserves every support. If men are to be banned because they are likely to make speeches calculated to strengthen the miners in their fight, it is the limit. The Home Secretary will have to alter his policy both in emergencies which arise in this country, and in the general administration, if he is to change the opinion that was expressed by a very eminent authority in this country not many years ago. I may, with the permission of the House, quote a statement made at Bradford, in which it was said, in reply to the Tory party's claim to be the party of law and order:
As long as it is the working men of England or the Nationalist peasants of Ireland, there is no measure of military force which the Tory party will not readily employ. They denounce all violence except their own. They uphold all law except the law which they choose to break. They always welcome the application of force to others, while they themselves are to be immune. They select from the Statute Book the laws they will obey and the laws they will resist.
Is that a true statement of the Tory outlook with regard to administration? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If it is not a
true statement, will hon. Members of that party be good enough to challenge the present Chancellor of the Exchequer on those words, because they are words which he uttered concerning the party of which he is now a shining light? They were uttered in reply to the "Fire and be damned" speech which the present Home Secretary delivered in an unconstitutional moment, when it did not suit him to be constitutional.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I rise to correct a statement made by the Home Secretary. I think it was an unfair and untrue statement and one which ought not to have been made about a Member of this House. During his intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Wallhead) the Home Secretary said that the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell) had been in close touch with Moscow, and had made statements in this House in favour of general strikes, or at least expressing the opinion that general strikes would occur and occur again. The Home Secretary did not explain that the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean did not say that he necessarily believed in general strikes. What the hon. Member did say was that general strikes would occur and occur again, but that does not imply that the hon. Member himself is a fomenter of strikes. The fact is that strikes will occur, whether the hon. Member likes it or not, and whether the Home Secretary likes it or not. I regret the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean cannot be present owing to exceptional circumstances, but I can say that he has received no payment from Moscow directly or indirectly.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I did not say so.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I know you did not say it. You are too "fly" a criminal for that. [HON. MEMBERS "Order!"] If that were so, you might be convicted, but you may imply a thing without actually saying it. You tried to imply that to every miner who reads what you say and to allow innocent people to deduce that this man is in the pay of Moscow. This man held Socialist opinions many years ago and his opinions to-day remain more or less unchanged. He has stated that times without number, and I regret that an officer of the State, holding the office which the Home Secre-
tary holds, should imply that any Member is in the pay of an outside Government. The Home Secretary in his speech neglected to reply to one point raised by the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen). Hon. Members opposite constantly fling across at us the statement that we are directly or indirectly in the pay of the trade unions and are subsidised to create strife on behalf of the trade union movement. That is a common, every day occurrence in this House.
The hon. Member for Camlachie proved that the Chairman of the Unionist Association is a prominent coalowner. Is the right hon. Gentleman opposite, with his speeches about trade union activities and the necessity for a Bill to inquire into the working of trade unions, is he, as a prominent member of the Conservative party, prepared to make as public their income and expenditure as the Labour party are to make theirs? Is he prepared to say whether the new Chairman of the Unionist party, a prominent coalowner, is not subsidising the Tory party at the present time? What income will they derive and have they derived from the coalowners of this country? I make bold to say that the Conservative party in this country largely maintain their financial position, largely run their candidates, by the subsidy direct of the coal-owners, and that this attitude of the Home Secretary is the direct outcome of the coalowners' instructions to him.
In his speech to-night he quoted a Communist document which said they must withdraw the safety men and take steps to see that the proposed peace was not accepted, and he went on to say that that document was not illegal. It is not illegal for a miner or anybody else to give his opinion on the peace terms. It is not illegal for the Home Secretary to give advice to the miners to vote in favour of these terms. It is not illegal or wrong, and, therefore, I say that it is quite constitutional and correct for a person not a miner to influence miners to vote against the peace terms. Here is a Communist who comes along, not acting illegally, but issuing a document which the Home Secretary says is not illegal, but that while it is right for him, as Home Secretary, to urge miners to
vote for peace, it is wrong and ought to be banned for some other person, not a miner, to advocate the rejection of those peace terms. It cannot be defended, and what the Home Secretary is setting out to do is to try to repress every idea which he thinks wrong, and with which he does not agree. We have now found out, after an elaborate process of questioning, a process that was riot successful with his Under-Secretary—I pass no reflection on him, because if the Under-Secretary is as ill-informed as the chief constables, I pity him, and he is not to blame; the Under-Secretary could not inform us—but we now find out a thing of which Mr. Speaker had no knowledge and of which the Clerks at the Table had no knowledge, namely, that the Home Secretary officially banned the Communist meetings.
I want to ask a question that was put to his Under-Secretary the other night, in the right hon. Gentleman's absence, as to whether a certain summons had been issued by the Home Secretary in his capacity as Home Secretary or whether it had been instigated by him as a piece of political spite against a particular opponent. This is not far-fetched. We have seen the vendetta pursued against the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell). We remember the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made at a Unionist gathering at Twickenham. In the course of that speech he dealt with the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean. He then came to the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), who previously had made a speech in this House. The right hon. Gentleman, before the summons was issued, before proceedings were started, outlined that he intended on behalf of His Majesty's Government to place the hon. Member in prison. He quoted part of a speech which the hon. Member had made on the Floor of this House, and said that if that speech were repeated, in other words, if the hon. Member dared to say outside what he said inside the House, then he, the Home Secretary—not the Chief Constable, not justice, but he, the Home Secretary, would plant his opponent in prison.
It is past the stage of reason. All that the Home Secretary can do is to take a man from his wife and family, and plant him in gaol because he is his
opponent. That is the stage we have reached with the Home Secretary. The attitude of the Home Secretary was that we were privileged here, and were afraid to repeat it outside. He has us both ways. He says we are cowards, because we say it here, and if we repeat it outside, he uses his vendetta, his spite, almost his hatred, to put a colleague in gaol. I ask any unbiassed hon. Member at least to hold the balance between the two sides. Let any person holding liberal ideas go over the Twickenham speech. I am not afraid of this matter being judged. In the Twickenham speech there are spite, spleen, hatred, the love of merely planting an opponent in prison. I ask for a definite answer from the right hon. Gentleman—did he directly or indirectly cause the proceedings to be taken? I am not blaming the Under-Secretary or making a single reflection on him. He did not know at hat time. But we have the right to ask, was this done against the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs by the Home Secretary? That question ought to be answered?
The Home Secretary may think he is doing a great day's work by stopping our meetings. He may think he is getting peace in our time by that particular method. He may go on banning meetings. He may even imprison the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs. All that sort of thing was done years ago. They tried to sabotage us, and the people they thought would delight in our imprisonment sent us hack to the House, with greater majorities than ever. This is the method that we have reached—the Government cannot argue, they cannot reason, but use the brute force they possess through their great majority in this House. I see in one of to-day's papers that a man was fined£25 because he said, "Vote for the Labour representatives in order to get control of the local police." The right hon. Gentleman thinks that is progress. You cannot kill ideas, you cannot kill thought. Neither with imprisonment nor with gaoling will the hon. Member for Dumbarton ever be killed. You cannot kill his ideas or his speech. I know that you can do anything with some hon. Members—make the man a sir or a lord, send him to "another place," and you have killed him for all time; but in the case of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs and his col-
leagues, even the Home Secretary, with the little majesty he has got, cannot suppress them. We will go on repeating what we believe to be true inside this Chamber and outside this Chamber, and try to get the people of the country to accept our views. I hope the Home Secretary will at least reply to the point I have raised: Has he, in a personal vendetta, raised this prosecution, or has he not?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: If I may speak again, by leave of the House, I need hardly say that I have no personal vendetta against the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). I have explained—my speech is on record. The hon. Member made a speech in this House and I made a speech in this House referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs. I cannot go further than that, and I will not go further than that, to-day. As soon as the case is over, there will be plenty of opportunities for the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) to raise the case again, and I will answer fully all his questions. But it would be grossly improper to discuss it in any way now, and it would not be desirable in the interests of the hon. Member, because I may have a defence to make, or I may not, but it would be very unfortunate if I were to make a defence which might react against the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs. Therefore, I say to the hon. Member for Gorbals, as I said an hour ago, that I cannot and I will not discuss the case of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs until it is over, and then I will be prepared to discuss it as fully as the House wishes.

Mr. LANSBURY: I would like to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell) is one of my oldest friends in the Labour movement. I have known him all his life, I am much older than he is, and he has held the view that he holds to-day all the years that I have known him; and for the Home Secretary to say that because he goes to Moscow and is friendly with the Bolshevists he comes back here and advocates a certain policy is sheer, undiluted nonsense. It is quite easy to look up who the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean is and what his record is. I have worked with him in
all kinds of movements connected with Socialism, and both of us hold the view that either through Parliament or through the general strike or in some way Socialism will come in this country. I have said—I expect the Government have records of it—when other people have said "Never again," I have said "Again and again," because 1 believe that Socialism must come. I am not ashamed. My constituents know it, and when they do not want me any longer they will turn me out, like we shall turn the right hon. Gentleman out, and other hon. Members too. But that is beside the mark. Hon. Members need not worry about me, and I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman has many sleepless nights about his majority either.
I want to call attention to another very serious fact. Our case against the Government, at least my case against the Government, is that during the strike or lock-out they have taken sides definitely against the men. Whatever our views theoretically may be to-night, here we have the Home Secretary definitely stating at a critical moment, knowing there was to be a campaign to induce the miners not to return to work, choosing that time to suppress Communist propaganda. All that is being used against the miners. I know it is argued that this action is being taken against the Communists, but it is really against the men being allowed to hear the arguments of the Communists. When it comes to banning some of the sort of people the right hon. Gentleman has banned, it is not merely Communists, but many other people. My point is that the Home Secretary has admitted that at a critical point in this dispute he has used the whole power of the forces of the Crown, and his extraordinary legal powers under the Emergency Powers Act, not to preserve order, but to suppress Communist propaganda. Those powers were not given him for that purpose, and yet he stands up and says, because certain efforts were being made by certain trade union leaders to bring about a settlement, and another section did not want a settlement, "I throw my whole weight in to prevent propaganda of that kind."
That is an abuse of his powers. The right hon. Gentleman has really abused his power and the trust the House of Commons placed in his hands.
Look at the result of all this. I am one of those who have always thought that the more a movement is persecuted and denounced the stronger it becomes, if it has any foundation of truth in it, because you cannot suppress truth by coercion. There may not be any truth in Communism, and, if so, it will die a natural death. We have often heard the Scriptural quotation, "If it is of God it will live, and if it is of the devil it will die." I think the Home Secretary would have been better advised to have left the Communists alone, because by adopting this policy the Government have only stirred up the miners to such an extent that there is a stronger feeling against the Government terms than there would have been but for all this coercion. The reason for this is that the miners have realised that what the Communists were saying was true, and that the Government did not want the truth to prevail.
Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are always very scornful about the men in the coalfields and their enjoyment. I want to point out again that in spite of all your Emergency Regulations, and in spite of all your weighting of the scales against the men, they are now only exhibiting the same sort of courage that you were so proud of during the War. They are exhibiting it to-day, however, on behalf of their own women and children. That is all there is to it, and I think this House of Commons is betraying the trust reposed in it by the people of the country in allowing the right hon. Gentleman to stand at that Box to-night and admit, and, really, glory in the fact, that he has used the powers under the Emergency Powers Act, given to him to preserve law and order, in order to prevent propaganda against the infamous, wicked terms which the mineowners and the Government are trying to impose upon the men.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter before Eleven o'Clock.